Enniskillen produced an improved performance in beating a gallant Grosvenor side 32 – 12 at
\nMullaghmeen on Saturday, in an impressive response to the heavy defeat away to Ballyclare the
\nprevious week.
\n‘Skins started in a positive fashion and tried to play their rugby in the visitors’ half, but Grosvenor\u2019s
\nscrum was strong and the opening exchanges were fairly even. ‘Skins however did have the
\nterritorial advantage and good aggressive ball-carrying forced two penalties, which were both
\nconverted by Donagh O\u2019Callaghan.
\nBetter was to follow when a great break and run from scrumhalf Paddy McCleery on twenty-five
\nminutes started a flowing ‘Skins attack, which went right then left before being finished by winger
\nZac Charleton who skipped past his opponent to score an unconverted try in the corner.
\n‘Skins were then guilty of rather standing back to admire their handiwork and this allowed
\nGrosvenor into the game. On half-an-hour Grosvenor mounted a concerted attacked, firstly on
\ntheir left hand side before switching right to their No 8, who despite being well tackled by Kaine
\nHolden managed to offload the ball, but to ‘Skins relief a knock-on prevented any score. The game
\nbecame a bit loose but Grosvenor continued to camp in the Enniskillen half and on the halftime
\nwhistle their outhalf eventually got over for an unconverted try to leave score 11 \u2013 5 at the break.<\/p>\n
With Grosvenor grabbing that try just before the break it was imperative that ‘Skins didn’t let the
\nmomentum swing and they managed to do just that. Early in the second half McCleery and David
\nBuchanan combined well to bring play deep into visitors’ territory but the move was halted by a
\nloose pass. Further ‘Skins pressure led to a penalty which was kicked to touch. From the lineout
\nthe ball was retained following a series of forward drives and it was ‘Skins’ No.8, Jamie Johnston,
\nwho scored near the posts, with O\u2019Callaghan’s conversion taking the score to 18 \u2013 5.
\nIn the 50th minute ‘Skins were again attacking when a loose pass was collected by Grosvenor who
\ntook play to the ‘Skins’ line before scoring a controversial converted try, when the player’s foot
\nseemed to cross the \u201cdead ball\u201d line before he touched down in front of \u201cthe shed\u201d, to close the gap
\nto just six points. The home supporters had an anxious time as Grosvenor applied more pressure,
\nbut a timely turnover and kick to touch by Alan Wilkinson raised the siege. From the resulting
\nlineout Grosvenor gained possession and drove to ‘Skins’ line, but were again the ball was turned
\nover.
\nHaving weathered the storm some good work by McCleery and Ryan Cathcart led to a kick ahead
\nby O\u2019Callaghan and in the resultant footrush Charleton nearly added his second try. This was
\nfollowed by a great break from Wilkinson which almost yielded another score. ‘Skins were
\napplying constant pressure at this stage and on the hour mark a great drive from Johnston led to
\nexcellent possession which saw O\u2019Callaghan put in the clear but he failed to ground the ball.
\n‘Skins couldn’t capitalise in the resulting scrum and Grosvenor grabbed a relieving penalty.
\nFive minutes later O\u2019Callaghan just missed a long-range penalty but ‘Skins were keeping up the
\npressure and making sure that all the play was in the visitors’ half. Shortly after Wilkinson had
\nanother fine run and expertly offloaded to Johnston who grabbed his second try, which
\nO\u2019Callaghan again converted.
\nWhen play restarted ‘Skins again moved the ball quickly and a fine move ended with a further try
\nfor Johnston in the corner, with O’Callaghan hitting an excellent conversion all but seal the win.
\nThe game ended with Grosvenor pressing for some further consolation but ‘Skins held firm for a
\nwell deserved bonus point win, with a much improved performance playing some impressive rugby.
\nThe backs moved the ball with more fluency and the forwards put in an impressive shift. Next up
\nare old rivals Omagh in what should be an enticing Friday night derby game under lights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Enniskillen produced an improved performance in beating a gallant Grosvenor side 32 – 12 at Mullaghmeen on Saturday, in an impressive response to the heavy defeat away to Ballyclare the previous week. ‘Skins started in a positive fashion and tried to play their rugby in the visitors’ half, but Grosvenor\u2019s scrum was strong and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[482],"tags":[17237,1246,5304,5816,3959],"class_list":["post-56224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enniskillen","tag-enniskillen","tag-grosvenor","tag-notes","tag-rfc","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56224","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=56224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56225,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56224\/revisions\/56225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}