{"id":45285,"date":"2013-04-08T13:42:15","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T13:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/?p=45285"},"modified":"2013-04-08T13:42:15","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T13:42:15","slug":"donaghadee-rugby-club-notes-i-xv-24-v-dromore-rfc-i-xv-17-report-live-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/donaghadee-rugby-club-notes-i-xv-24-v-dromore-rfc-i-xv-17-report-live-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Donaghadee Rugby Club Notes: I XV 24 v Dromore RFC I XV 17 Report LIVE HERE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donaghadee travelled to Dromore last Saturday in the knowledge that preventing Dromore from a bonus point win on the day would offer Donaghadee the reward of a second consecutive top four finish and qualification for the All Ireland Junior Cup. CLICK HERE<\/a> for pictures
\nDonaghadee very nearly produced the perfect start in what was a high tempo opening five minutes from the Dee men. The opportunity came from a useful Paul McKenzie nudge deep into the Dromore 22 and as the opposing fullback tried to clear Chris McGivern pounced and charged the clearance, in turn creating an opportunity to ground the ball over the try line. Although the referee signalled for the try a late touch-line flag brought play back for a Dromore line-out.
\nOnly two minutes and a number of phases later there was no doubt about Donaghadee\u2019s next effort as the referee awarded a penalty try after a number of infringements at the scrum from the defending Dromore. The Dee dominance in these early scrums was to prove a feature of the game as Ali Barnes, Phil Eadie and pack continue to show their quality in this area.
\nDromore responded to the early setback with a sustained period of pressure and McKenzie suffered the fate of a sin-binning on the 23rd minute, perhaps a tad unfortunate to be the last of a number of Donaghadee offenders at the breakdown. Dromore immediately capitalised on the numerical advantage and powered their way over the line for their first points of the game.
\nDonaghadee lost influential captain Ali Lockhart midway through the first half with a nasty knock to his mouth \u2013 a disappointing end to an otherwise exemplary season for the young scrum-half.
\nAfter the try the momentum immediately swung back in Donaghadee\u2019s favour and the powerful David Thompson, who recovered well after an earlier knock to his calf, fed Billy Allen from the base of the scrum. Allen took the ball at speed and found himself in space and finished with class just to the right hand side of the uprights to give Donaghadee a 12-5 lead.
\nOn the stroke of half-time the dynamic Dromore scrum half Steenson appeared to use his boot illegally at the breakdown and with the referee having a clear view of the incident he decided the Dromore man\u2019s actions warranted a red card.
\nHalf Time \u2013 Dromore 5 Donaghadee 12
\nAllen scored his second of the day early in the second period taking a quick penalty deep in the Dromore half. Allen showed a great turn of pace and excellent strength to finish his solo effort after great work by the Dee pack to establish territorial advantage. Barker converted to give Dee a 19-5 lead.
\nWith Donaghadee very much in the \u2018driving seat\u2019 and Dromore down to fourteen men one could of easily predicted a Dromore capitulation however with strong home crowd support the Dromore side enjoyed enough possession in the second period to produce a reasonably entertaining game.
\nThe focus and commitment of every Donaghadee player, including two strong impact performances from Chris Wood and Phil Collins was enough to keep control of the game. Kalave Auali\u2019itia was in no mood to sign off his two years in a red and green shirt with anything less than a victory with another excellent performance dominating line-out set pieces with Richard Martindale.
\nThe desire of the Dee players was perhaps epitomised best by a piece of play on the 63rd minute from Chris Hamilton. Hamilton put in a text book tackle in the middle of the park, leapt to his feet and stole the ball from the ruck that formed as a result of his tackle.
\nThe Donaghadee backline suffered a few re-shuffles during the game due to a number of injuries and tactical switches. It was however this youthful back-line who conjured up Donaghadee\u2019s fourth and final try of the day. McGivern started the move and after creating havoc in the Dromore backline he fed the ball to Barker who in turn fed a scoring pass to the oncoming Rory Garnham whose intelligent attacking line allowed him to finish off an excellent counter attacking move.
\nDonaghadee\u2019s defence fell short of its usually high standards in the final stages of the game and they allowed Dromore in for two late tries bring the full time scores to Dromore 17 \u2013 Donaghadee 24.
\nScoops Man of the Match \u2013 Billy Allen
\nDonaghadee team: B.Allen ,C.McGivern, I Martindale, N Barker, P McKenzie, R.Garnham, P McKenzie A Lockhart, A.Barnes,G.Gordon, P.Eadie, K Auali\u2019itia, J.Cooke, R.Martindale, C Hamilton, D.Thompson Subs: P.Collins, C.Woods
\nAll Ireland Junior Cup qualification two years in a row then for the Dee – a magnificent effort once again from this dedicated squad \u2013 of which there are at least another dozen who did not have the opportunity to play last Saturday – which included winning ten of their last eleven league games. The Club and players would like to take this opportunity to thank the following: Joint Coaches Paul McKenzie and Stuart Hennessey, Assistant Coach Chris Good, Manager Peter Matthews and physio Niall Moraghan , skipper Alastair Lockhart and Vice-Captain Gareth Gordon, Chairman of Selectors Ian Fleming, Jonathan Martindale for his peerless match reports each week, Club Doctor Michael Doyle, photographer George Millar and Touch Judge Frank Humphreys (special thanks to Gavin Wallace for filling in at the Dromore game) together with the legions of support from many others both on and off the field.
\nAlthough the season has now finished for the 1st XV the 2nd and 3rd XVs have outstanding re-arranged games to play and their Captains and Managers will be in touch with all players.
\nThis Sunday the Club welcome back the Perennials to Donaldson Park for the first time in many years. In addition to the main event which kicks off at 2:30pm there will also be some age grade rugby on offer with music and food after the game. This promises to be an excellent afternoon\u2019s craic so make sure you don\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donaghadee travelled to Dromore last Saturday in the knowledge that preventing Dromore from a bonus point win on the day would offer Donaghadee the reward of a second consecutive top four finish and qualification for the All Ireland Junior Cup. CLICK HERE for pictures Donaghadee very nearly produced the perfect start in what was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[378],"tags":[4719,17228,3959],"class_list":["post-45285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donaghadee","tag-club","tag-donaghadee","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45285","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=45285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45287,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45285\/revisions\/45287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}