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Letterkenny 2nd XV 18 - 0 Strabane 2's | Tue 01st Nov 2005 | | Team:- Les, McCarter, Gary B, David Crosby, Glen, A.J, Stuarty, J.k, Timmy, Garry Smith, Gareth C, Eddie, Bap, Lee, Smiler. Sub, McSparron
Well it was a fresh faced and very excited team that showed up in the middle of absolutley nowhere to play on a pitch that some would describe as a bog hole. Especially one corner which I almost disappeared into when doing my wing in the second half. Anyway for a change Captain fantastic won the toss and elected to receive the kick so it meant we where playing with what little wind advantage there was for the first half. Letterkenny where well fired up as they where expecting an easy victory after there run over us at Lifford road. They came away after about 5 minutes with 3 points after sustained pressure although they wanted the 7 but some resolute defense and big hits from everybody showed that strabane where not going to give in easily. Timmy's tackling was fantastic and he was always making the first up hits and bringing down everybody who had the ball.
Strabane somehow ended up on the back foot for most of the first half and our usually strong weapon which is the line out was totally misfiring. There is no explanation for this other than the fact the letterkenny jumper was very good at getting up and disrupting our throws much to the annoyance of those people in the back line! Letterkenny again pounded our line and poor smiler found out how O'Driscol felt after he got introduced to the spear tackle. For some reason the ref decided that smiler landing on his head and facing sideways and not being able to release the ball was a legitimate tackle and awarded letterkenny a penalty which they slotted over (i think) for another 3 points. In the last play of the half the kenny backs got the ball and working with an overlap on the left wing threw me a dummy and walked in for the only try of the half. This left us 11-0 down.
Much discussion then took place at half time about what was going on and this is where things started to fall apart. There didnt seem to be any real cohesion in the team in the second half. McSparron came on for Garry B to bolster the scrum although it was already fine and we where holding our own against a larger pack. Bap was now playing outhalf and garry smith was playing second centre. Anyway we really piled the pressure on letterkenny for the first 10 mins of the second half and threw everything at them and still came away with nothing! It was that age old story of not being able to turn good pressure into points. Bap did make good ground at kicking although he was given a lesson from kicking by the letterkenny number 10. Bap also scored the only try of the second half, sorry i mean gifted the letterkenny number 6 with the only try of the second half. From a strabane throw in the ball was won and passed out with bap getting his kick charged down and the mountain men coming away with 7 points.
This was not the only time this was to happen with bap getting another 2 kicks charged down although fortunately this time we where not punished so greatly. He once again showed his kicking presence by just drifting a drop goal wide of the upright by a mere 12" Anyway we played reasonable well but lost. There is work to be done for team moral and only the captain should be shouting orders on the pitch not everybody.
We then went and got blocked and tried to play cards! A good night was had by all. |
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