Strabane 2’s 34 – 14 Ballymoney 5’s
strabane 2’s maintained their 100% record this season with a dearly won victory at liskey rd. 5 tries and another good team performance were overshadowed by the loss of skipper for the day willy black with a knee injury and bap fractured his leg. ๐
the game started with another fierce strabane onslaught on the visitors line, and after a 10 minute pummelling puffin eventually barged over from short range for a try converted by maxi.
ballymoney scored a fortuitous try when a hopeful punt into our 22 from the opposition fullback was knocked on by the usually solid bap. the ball bounced into the hands of the on-rushing 15 and he cantered in for an early christmas present.CLICK HERE to like Nick Williams facebook page and share
not to be upset, we went back up the other end and after another bout near the ‘money 22, bap rumbled over to restore the lead.
in the build up to this try, stand-in skipper willy black was injured when he got his leg twisted awkwardly in a ruck. the visitors then mounted their only sustained pressure and hammered our line with their big pack. Aj millar looked to have turned the ball over with a powerful counter-ruck, but got 10 minutes in the bin for his trouble, and from the ensuing lineout money drove over to level the scores at 14 a piece.
this was scant reward for strabane’s endeavours and with only 3 minutes to half-time stand-in, stand-an skipper bob dillon rallied the 14 troops for a quick raid into enemy territory. good work by the team led to a 5m scrum to the homesters, and with bap coming in to number 8 a forceful pick and drive from him was finished off by our very own nick williams – puffin blair and the ref blew to finish the half 21-14.
wise words from mowbs at half-time re-energised the troops and with aj back from his siesta, the second half was all strabane.
maxi slotted the most economically struck drop goal ever seen during penalty advantage and aj ran in from the 22 to get an unconverted try to make the score a comfortable 29 -14. Bap went on another barnstorming run down their poor wee 10โs channel, and looked set for another score with the line a his mercy, only for their full back to put in a devastating tackle from the side that hurt the big man immediately. You knew it was bad when he made no effort to crawl for the line to keep the pressure on mowbs in the try scoring stakes. What we thought was a knee ligament damage turned out to be a fractured shin bone, and we hope him and willy a speedy recovery. With time winding down a loose clearance was returned well and after a qick drive on and re-cycle the backline put together a textbook move to put the ball through the full set of hands for scaldy gore to score a winger’s dream try in the corner, leaving the final score 34-15.
Another fine performance from the 2’s, but still plenty to work on and blackie and bap will not be easily replaced.
