Ards 3s 50 v Cooke Special mention to Stephen Mckee with 3 tries!!
Unlucky Ards 4s miss out by 2 points. Ended 17-15 against a great side!
Armagh 30 V 7 Ards I XV
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Last Saturday Ards made their third trip in a calendar year to the Palace Grounds to play Armagh. On this occasion the game was the first round on the Senior Cup and the match was played in extremely hot and sunny conditions, which no doubt suited the spectators, but made life difficult for both teams. The match afforded Head Coach Mervyn Tweed another opportunity of assessing a number of new players in the squad and trying one or two players in different positions as the match progressed.
Armagh kicked off and launched a long kick deep into the Ards half. When the ball was kicked towards touch, it was charged down by an Armagh player and the fortuitous bounce saw the ball land in the hands of their No. 8. Everyone stopped including the Armagh player expecting the referree’s whistle for offside. However the referee had other ideas and allowed play to continue and the Armagh No. 8 literally walked over the try line to the astonishment of players, officials and spectators from both sides. Ards found themselves 5-0 down with only one minute on the clock. Hardly the start the team were looking for and one of the strangest tries awarded for a considerable time.
Armagh extended their lead to 8-0 with a penalty after seven minutes, whereas Ards had a missed penalty of their own just two minutes later. With Armagh on the attack Nathan Burns intercepted on his own 22 metre line and looked as if he would make it a hatrick if tries for the firsts in three games, only to be caught by the Armagh left winger who had tracked back. Ards were now producing quick clean possession from rucks and after several such phases Scott Young scampered over from 10 yards to score a try to the left of the posts converted by Mark Banford. With half time approaching it appeared Armagh would take a slender one point lead into the interval. However when the referree awarded the home side a penalty on the Ards 10 metre line they opted to kick for touch and from the resulting line out a rolling maul resulted in a converted try to give them a 15-7 lead at half time.
With conditions becoming even hotter, Armagh were quickly in their stride at the start of the second half, with their speedy backs scoring a fine try which was unconverted .Charlie Stewart, making a welcome debut at half time, came on for the impressive Kyle Agnew at scrum half and Ards made full use of their bench in the second period with Michael Taylor (playing his first match of the season) and Craig Devlin replacing Jonny Beggs and Taylor Ferguson. A few minutes later Gareth McBurney replaced Matthew Weir and the ever reliable David Chivers made an appearance at hooker too, as the half wore on. The match saw the return of Jonny Dawson for his first match of the season, and he was perhaps a little unfortunate to receive a yellow card for retaliation in the 65th minute. The second half was less structured and more fragmented from both sides, but to the credit of Armagh they took their chances. A further try from a rolling maul in the 68th minute and a final try in the dying moments gave them a deserved win at 30-7. Ards wish Armagh well in the Senior Cup and look forward to crossing swords againj in both the Senior League and the All Ireland League later in the season.
The Ards squad was; Jonny Millar, David Graham, Andrew Foster, Matthew Weir, John Dowey, Jonny Dawson, Rob McCausland, david calvert, Kyle Agnew, Mark Banford, Nathan Burns, Scott Young, David Parkhill, Taylor Ferguson, Jonny Beggs, David Chivers, Gareth McBurney, Michael Taylor, Charlie Stewart, Craig Devlin.
