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STRABANE 26 - 17 BALLYSHANNON | Sat 04th Feb 2006 | | mal, bob, davy, eddie, john graham, gordy, cricky, mitchy, timmy, maxi, rossi, bap, brian, gilsy and mowbs.
an early kick-off at 11.30am, so we could see ireland rob italy , meant a return to schoolboy days, and this clearly affected some team members, but thankfully not the team. this was as tough a game as we've had all season, and the crowd of 36 ( officially counted by soupy ) were treated to some great entertainment as both sides gave it their all.
ballyshannon kicked off, playing towards lifford and the battle commenced. after 5 minutes of probing each others defences, maxi chipped over the flat shannon defence, the bobbling ball wasn't dealt with and brian was the grateful recipient of a spill, and cantered in under the posts to leave it 7-0 ( maxi doing the honours ). having done very little we were ahead, but any thoughts that this was going to be handy were soon dispelled when shannon brought their backs into play. a simple move along the backline resulted in their winger scoring under the posts, the tackling leaving a lot to be desired
the strabane pack then showed what they were made of when shannon were awarded a scrum on their own 5m line. an 8-man shove led to a hook against the head and mitchy stole the credit for yet another front row score ( well i suppose he had a wee bit to do) , unconverted. a sad misfortune then befell us, as gilsy must have been getting personal coaching from mowbs, and failed to secure a ball hacked through - the result being the same as against randalstown: 12- 14 to shannon
SING-A-LONG-A BOB - " THERE'S ONLY ONE GARETH GILMORE............
you know the rest
at halftime we knew we were staring down the barrell of a wasted season unless we cut out the errors and ground this side down, and the resolve in the huddle was inspiring to witness. we had tasted bitter defeat last weekend and none of us was prepared to repeat it. from our restart we immediately put pressure on shannon and were awarded a penalty that maxi safely guided home - back in a lead we weren't going to lose. more good work saw them infringe again, and the plan to harvest any points on offer paid off handsomely when maxi did the trick again 18-14 . from the restart, a lapse in concentration gave the donegal men a penalty opportunity, their outhalf gratefully accepting the invitation and there was only one point in it
the match was going to one side and then the other, but the critical point for me was when shannon had a throw in on our 5m line. there was a short break for an injury before the throw, but we had a chat on the line and we knew our season came down to this lineout, as we knew it would be very difficult to go back down and win the game if shannon got their noses in front again. the support on the touchline must also get a mention at this point, as the continual encouragement and sheer will to win from the lads was a great boost to us all. shannon threw to the front and gordy ( lifted by davy and mal ) produced the all important steal to great roars of approval . from the ensuing ruck mitchy broke up the sideline and put in a clever kick deep into the shannon 22, and with the strabane men rampaging up after the ball, the defender made a hurried clearance to leave us in great field position.
we now had the upper hand and we really upped the tempo and after a series of attacks the ball came out to skip finlay, who had 10 hard yards and 4 men to beat to make the line. he knew he had to make it and he fired up the turbos and dozed over the line for a score that knocked the stuffing out of the opposition. maxi missed the conversion, but made ammends shortly afterwards with a penalty that gave us a 9 point cushion, that we held firmly until the end of the game. final score strabane 26 - 17 ballyshannon, and we are now firm favourites for the league title
ballyshannon must be praised for the manner in which they played the game - a few of them said that was the best they've played all season, which makes the victory all the sweeter. the ref from clones also played a blinder and was as sharp as mitchy's slagging of mal over the "jimmy stewart incident". young timbo stepped up to the mark admirably and gordy came of age with an outstanding performance that cements his place in the firsts. old stager john graham played his heart out and was rewarded with a great picture of himself in the strabane weekly in front of his heathers eggs lorry - how much did you slip ricky craig you sly dog?
the forwards, in my opinion, deserve the lion's share of the credit for this one, but the backs have a chance to redeem themselves this weekend against the peelers in the cup - let's rock
ps when you consider that we were missing nigel, bert, fawcett, paul, soupy and housty, all regulars i think you'll agree, this was one helluva performance. thank you for your attention and i am now going to lie down and consider the paradox of using "clever" and "mitchy" in the same sentence |
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