Inishowen win Donegal derby
Inishowen travelled to Donegal on Saturday with injuries and work commitments once again disrupting the squad.The front row saw Eamon Doherty make only his second start in an unfamiliar position at hooker, in the backrow the experienced James Carr and young Pauric McGonagle making the step up from underage rugby both made their first starts of the season replacing Anthony Cantwell and Gary McEleney who both suffered knocks in the bruising encounter against Tir Choniall. In the backline a shuffle saw Gregg Byron come back in at 9, Paul Cassidy moving from outside centre to 10 and David Cassidy starting at 13.
Although they finished comfortable winners in the first meeting of these two teams earlier in the season Inishowen expected a stern test and there was a number of unfamiliar faces in the Donegal Town team. Inishowen won the toss choosing to play with their backs to the sun in the first half, they received the kick off and settled into the game by picking and driving through the forwards. The plan seemed to work as Donegal infringed at the ruck time and time again giving the visitors the opportunity to kick for the corners and use the lineout to set up good ball for the backs to test the Donegal defence. Maurice Harkin looked threatening with ball in hand and made good ground on more than one occasion, it was through Harkin breaking the gain line that Inishowen notched up the first score of the day with David Cassidy touching down for his first of the season. The second try came soon afterwards thanks to a pre-planned penalty move this time finished by Paul Cassidy, both conversions were missed leaving the score at 10-0 to Inishowen and the renowned slow starters had for a change hit the ground running.
With the quick start being converted into points Inishowen took their foot off the gas and allowed Donegal to test the Inish defence, the experienced outhalf used his boot to good effect kicking behind the defence for his wingers to chase. One high kick bounced awkwardly for Tony Diver on the Inishowen wing and straight into the hands of his opposite number with only the fullback to beat, the man squeezed into the 15 shirt on the particular occasion was James McColgan who made a good tackle to stop the attack and give Inishowen the chance to regroup in defence. A penalty for Donegal soon afterwards was slotted over and the score was 10-3 at half time.
During the half time team talk it was made clear that Inishowen had to revert back to how they had started and not let Donegal sneak back into the game. With the sun now setting Inishowen kicked and chased the restart and put pressure on the home side forcing them to concede another penalty, with only a converted try between the teams a decision was made to kick for the posts and the successful kick opened up a 10 point gap with the score now at 13-3 for the visitors Donegal would have to score twice to get back into the game.
With breathing space between the teams the Inish forwards gathered the restart and attacked the opposite numbers, the maul was once again used to good effect and the backline commented after the game that they were jogging to keep up waiting for the forwards to release the ball. Donegal had no answer to this method of attack and tried to stop it illegally by either pulling it down or moving to the back to disrupt, with a number of penaltys given away in the maul the ref had no choice but to award a penalty try. Another missed conversion this time from in front of the posts stretched the score line to 18-3 in the visitors favour. From the kick off good field position was made once again, Seamus Hickey who replaced Gregg Byron kicked from the back of a ruck and good chasing from Colm Sweeney caused the Donegal winger to knock on. Inishowen looking for another score lost the ball in contact and the Donegal 10 found himself behind his own try line with the ball in hand, usually calm and assured kicking from hand he miss- kicked and sliced the ball off the side of his boot outing the ball out for a lineout to Inishowen on the 5 metre line. The lineout was won cleanly and another maul set up allowing James Carr to mark his comeback with an unconverted try leaving the score at 23-3.
With the game in the final 10 minutes Inishowen went down to 14 men with a yellow card awarded by the ref, this spurred the home side and they once again tested the Inish defence that was solid until another penalty was taken quickly before the visitors were back the required 10 metres allowing Donegal to score an easy try under the posts. The following conversion left the score at 23-10 to the visitors.
Inishowen now playing with a man down let the penalty count clock up and another yellow card was shown to leave the visitors with only 13 men on the pitch for the final few minutes, a scrum was awarded to the visitors and with no scrum half on the pitch number 8 Carr fed the ball in .The ball shot out of the scrum and Colm Sweeney was only too happy to hack the ball into touch and hear the final whistle to sound the end of the game.
The set piece was once again solid with Eamon Bushman robbing a few scrums against the head proving that last weeks game wasn’t a fluke and that he has plenty to offer the team wearing the number 2 shirt. New boy Pauric McGonagle had no problem fitting into the team hitting rucks, making tackles and jumping in the lineout along with stealing a few opposition lineouts. With a number of players staking a claim for a starting spot captain Neil Gillespie is happy to have an expanding squad to choose from and expects everybody to make an effort at training in a bid to earn the starting jersey.
