Cooke put an indifferent start to the season behind them with a well-earned junior cup victory against Ballymoney.
With less than one minute played the visitors crossed the line in what was a catastrophic start for the north Antrim side. Having received the kick off, Ballymoney’s attempt to clear their line was charged down by visiting out-half Finlay who collected the ball and ran in under the posts offering Jarvis the easiest of conversions.
Five minutes later the Belfast side struck again. Some slick passing along the Cooke backline allowed winger McMaster to find space to sprint under the posts where Jarvis converted to extend the visitors lead to 14 points.
With some eight minutes played Ballymoney punished lack of concentration by the Cooke pack. Their strong scrum shunted Cooke backwards for flanker Mullholland to pick up and evade some poor Cooke defence to bring the home side back into the game. Fullback McCartney added the conversion. From the restart the men from the Toon launched another blistering attack where centre Bothwick found a gap in the Cooke defence to touch down for McCartney to convert and level the score at 14 all.
With 4 tries scored in the first ten minutes, the quality and pace at which the game was being played was being savoured by the large home support. As both sides settled into more established patterns of play it was Cooke who began to exert control. Watertight defence by both teams denied any further tries during the half but Cooke pressure resulted in 3 penalty kicks at goal by Jarvis who was on target twice pushing the Belfast side into a six point lead at the interval.
Cooke commenced the second half aggressively and were unfortunate not to have extended their lead when a pass into space for centre Cartmill was deliberately knocked on by a defender. With play almost entirely in the Ballymoney half, fullback Jarvis pushed Cooke further ahead when the Kilraughts Road side were penalised for a high tackle.
The best and probably the determining score of the game came with fifteen minutes remaining. Cooke out-half Finlay intercepted a slow Ballymoney pass and with support on either side, popped the ball for strong running centre McMurray to collect and cruise over for an unconverted try.
Ballymoney came back immediately and it was their pack who kept the game alive when second row Graham powered his way over from a maul in the corner. McCartney’s difficult conversion was off target and despite a strong finish by the home side Cooke defence held out resulting in a final score-line Ballymoney 19 Cooke 28
This was an extremely encouraging display by Cooke albeit against a side which has been weakened by injury. The control and speedy delivery of half back partners Creighton and Finlay improved the potency of the back line generally. There were fewer flaws in the set pieces but still room for improvement.
