{"id":18058,"date":"2011-11-02T10:11:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T10:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/?p=18058"},"modified":"2011-11-02T10:11:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T10:11:07","slug":"donaghadee-rugby-club-dee-hosts-rugby-neighbours-bangor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/donaghadee-rugby-club-dee-hosts-rugby-neighbours-bangor\/","title":{"rendered":"Donaghadee Rugby Club: DEE HOSTS RUGBY NEIGHBOURS BANGOR"},"content":{"rendered":"

DONAGHADEE SECONDS 3 – BANGOR SECONDS 8<\/strong>
\nMany of the Dee followers who could not get to Fivemiletown for the First XV\u2019s big Qualifying League Section One game against Clogher Valley last Saturday (29 Oct) started arriving at Donaldson Park around 2.00pm to pass their afternoon watching one or both of the Bangor games. Some of them greeted one another with comments along the lines of \u201cA hundred plus cars for Junior rugby! Who\u2019d have thought?\u201d
\nClearly the proximity of Bangor\u2019s Uprichard Park ground, and the fact that Bangor\u2019s First XV had no game, must have made a small impact on the size of the crowd. Whatever the reasons were, all sixty players and the officials must have been cheered to see so many taking an interest in their games.
\nDonaghadee Seconds took on Bangor Twos for the second time this season, although Saturday\u2019s game was in the Junior League. The visitors had begun with the westerly wind and some rain in their favour and their strong pack of forwards took most of the control in the early stages. It was not long before they were able to take the advantage with a fine penalty goal.
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\nThe Dee XV had been forced to take the field without a specialist scrum-half, except for Mark Cooper, whose ability to direct Donaghadee\u2019s attack from the No. 10 position was too important for his team to move him to scrum-half. The Dee forwards competed well enough, but the transfer of any attack to employ some of their good quality backs was not as smooth as it might have been.
\nOn the half-hour Bangor eventually forced another penalty close in, but Donaghadee\u2019s players willed the ball to go wide and the score stayed at a slender 3-0 to the visitors. They had looked the more impressive side all along, many of them showing their coach that they clearly had First XV potential. This was demonstrated on the field and on the scoreboard almost immediately when territorial possession and some serious determination took them over their opponents\u2019 line for what must have been a satisfying score. Minutes later another let-off from a missed penalty took the players into a welcome half-time break.
\nAs the second half commenced with Donaghadee facing an 8-0 deficit and noticing that the rain and wind had almost dissipated, they showed that they were still going to be competitive. Bangor\u2019s backline looked large and menacing, but it was now becoming apparent that their forwards were being denied the quality possession to release their three-quarters very often. Donaghadee\u2019s hard and experienced men such as Gavin Prue, Phil Collins and Andrew Dunn were grafting away to keep Bangor\u2019s possession slow and cautious. This kept the carrot of getting back on terms very visible to the home team\u2019s players.
\nDonaghadee\u2019s outside half Mark Cooper was showing a maturity beyond his years as he used every inch of the pitch to keep as much of the play as possible in Bangor\u2019s territory. He was ably supported by his slightly-makeshift backline putting in some good tackles and making a few stirring runs with Paddy Quinn, Chris McGivern, Andrew Cash and Ryan Thompson catching the eye on occasion.
\nWhen the referee spotted a Bangor infringement thirty metres out young Cooper stepped up to the mark and took the Donaghadee deficit to a less-daunting 8-3. It was quite clear that Donaghadee\u2019s players took encouragement from this and they pressed almost immediately. When Cooper put a testing penalty kick deep into Bangor territory and the full-back fumbled his attempted catch the Dee forwards positively rushed to form the resulting scrum. From the heel and the combined Donaghadee pressure the home side just narrowly failed to complete the try they so much deserved. Many grafted to get over the Bangor line and it was Chris McGivern who had to suffer the personal disappointment when the referee adjudged, rightly, that he had been two frustrating inches short of the try line. Stirring defence by Bangor, but a great disappointment to the Dee men.
\nDonaghadee were able to sustain the pressure on the Bangor line, with backs and forwards battering at the Bangor gates. But the Dee men were held out by staunch defence by Bangor and the game ended with an 8-3 win for the visitors. After the impressive start by the visitors such a close finish had looked beyond the Dee men. They deserved great credit for their application and effort.
\nDonaghadee Seconds\u2019 team: Ryan Willis, Phil McCaughey, Phil Collins, Andy Molineaux, Andrew Dunn, Gavin Prue, Sandy Forster, Jordan Allingham; Paddy Quinn, Mark Cooper, Andrew Cash (c), Gareth Martin, Chris McGivern, Ryan Thompson, Anthony Bunting. <\/p>\n

DONAGHADEE THIRDS 0 – BANGOR THIRDS 41
\nOn the adjacent \u201cwee\u201d pitch Donaghadee were playing Bangor Thirds. With the disadvantage of playing up the slope and against a strong-looking Bangor Thirds XV it was no surprise when half-time showed the hosts 18-0 down. Perhaps the second period would restore a balance.
\nSo relatively strong was the Bangor XV that even the benefits of wind and slope could not help a hard-working Donaghadee team, and the game eventually finished with a comfortable 41-0 win for the Bangor men.
\nDonaghadee Thirds: Philip Weston, Mark Poole, Marcus Nelson, Mark Mitchell, Ian Hamilton, Peter Gouk, Matt McGaw, Chris Cooper, Ian Rodgers, Arthur Brown, Gavin Wallace, John Wallace, Lee Monroe, Simon Woods and Ian Ritchie. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DONAGHADEE SECONDS 3 – BANGOR SECONDS 8 Many of the Dee followers who could not get to Fivemiletown for the First XV\u2019s big Qualifying League Section One game against Clogher Valley last Saturday (29 Oct) started arriving at Donaldson Park around 2.00pm to pass their afternoon watching one or both of the Bangor games. Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,378],"tags":[17216,4719,6927,17228,7659,7660,3959],"class_list":["post-18058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bangor","category-donaghadee","tag-bangor","tag-club","tag-dee","tag-donaghadee","tag-hosts","tag-neighbours","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}