Armagh 3rd xv vs Holywood 2nd xv 36-0
Saturday saw Armagh take the pitch against a plucky Holywood side in the first round of the Forster Cup at the Palace Grounds. Armagh had fielded a strong side, even with the influential Matty Campbell and Captain Chris Wallace unavailable through work commitments and injury respectively. But the team did welcome the return of Simon Cuttle from a long term lay-off… No-body would have thought he was off for over a year!
The game started at a break neck pace with the stronger, but considerably lighter, Armagh Pack carrying well with Captain Sam Knipe and the front row of McMahon Robinson and Knox all carrying hard. The ball was moved through the backs with out-half Stan Hamilton missing out Cuttle and the hard running Mark Curley role through a tackle to score under the posts. Hamilton converted.
Armagh caught the restart and moved the ball wide immediately through Cuttle and Curley to winger Nathan Hall, the ball unfortunately was lost forward. The strong Armagh scrum won the ball against the head and moved it wide again, the next phase saw Hamilton dummy and go in under the posts.
With the conversion this left Armagh 14 points clear going into the second half. It started the way the first left off. With good hands from Mark Allen, Eoin O’Hagan was deemed to have a double movement in the corner, a strange decision noticing the referee was at least 30 yards away. Armagh continued on with good running from Alex Starret and Paul Cully making holes for Connor Simms and Phil Campbell to do some damage and allow Glenn Robinson to go over under the posts. Hamilton converted.
The young side went on to score another 2 tries through Hamilton and Curley. The man of the match award went to Trevor Girvan for keeping the backs moving at all times, allowing for the fast pace Armagh needed to turn this Holywood side over.
