On a day that was perfect for playing rugby it was the home team who came took the game by the scruff of the neck and knuckled down to the task of penning their visitors in their own half. Armoy had Inishowen on the back foot for the first 15 minutes, as their forwards were dominating the scrums and lineouts. Armoys first score came virtue of a brilliant run by no 8 Ian Caldwell. It was from a ruck on the Inishowen 22 that the ball was passed out to him. Running at pace he evaded 3 would be tacklers but was eventually floored by 2 defenders inches short of the line. He presented the ball out to the back of the ruck for centre David Linton to pick and drive over under the posts for a score. Converted by J Traynor.
Inishowen came at Armoy from the kick off and applied some pressure of their own and were awarded a penalty on the edge of the Armoy 22 which they converted.
After a period of 10 minutes to-ing and fro-ing it was Armoy who next managed to add to the scoreboard. A good phase of rucks had found them camped in the Inishowen 22. From one of these rucks Armoy 2nd row Damien McClafferty charged at the Inishowen defence and showed great strength to get through a couple of tackles and present the ball when he was felled. From 5 meters out tight head Mark Donald charged for the line and with 2 tacklers hanging onto him he crashed over with the aid of nudge from Armoy captain Gareth Christie. Converted.
Again from this set back Inishowen rolled up their sleves and put pressure on Armoy. This resulted in them receiving kickable penalties on 2 occaisions before the half time whistle.
Half Time Armoy 14 Inishowen 9
The second half turned out to be a frustrating time for Armoy. After about 10 minutes Inishowen managed to level the scores after a good phase of ruck allowed them to feed the ball down their back line and over into the corner for a score. Unconverted.
The rest of the half was played out with possesion going backward and forward but with neither team able to create any clear cut chances although it could be argued that Armoy were thwarted on occasion by some suspect refereeing with only 4 decisions going their way in the second half (yes i was counting).
Final score Armoy 14 Inishowen 14
After the final whistle Gareth Christie praised his team on the much improved performance and urged everyone to make it to training on Wednesdays in order to maintain and exceed the standard that was evident on Saturday. Next week sees Armoy travel to Tir Chonail in Co Donegal for the first time.
