{"id":61876,"date":"2014-01-14T20:22:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T20:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/?p=61876"},"modified":"2014-01-14T20:56:27","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T20:56:27","slug":"ballymoney-3rd-xv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/ballymoney-3rd-xv\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballymoney 3rd XV v IV XV win and progress to round 2 of the Forster Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ballymoney 3rd XV win and progress to round 2 of the cup<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

by\u00a0Neil Campbell<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ballymoney 3rd XV win and progress to round 2 of the cup<\/p>\n

On a cold but dry Saturday afternoon Ballymoney 3\u2019s took to the field to face Ballymoney 4\u2019s in the first round of the Cup. If the fact that the two team who have trained together and with many players having played for both sides throughout the season didn’t add enough spice to the occasion, we had a couple of family rivalries as well.
\nFirst we have\u00a0Matthew Pollock<\/a>\u00a0playing scrumhalf for the 3\u2019s, this is first season in senior rugby playing against his father\u00a0Thomas Pollock<\/a>\u00a0who plays prop or hooker for the 4\u2019s. Thomas managed both position on Saturday swapping regularly with\u00a0Gareth Rankin<\/a>. Right from the first whistle Thomas was gunning for his son. From the first ruck of the game Thomas entered late and from the side of the ruck just to tackle Matthew, however illegal and spotted by the referee with a penalty to 3\u2019s. Matthew didn’t seem to mind and I am sure will have plenty of nights to rub salt into the father\u2019s wounds and gloat about being on the winning side.
\nThe second family rivalry was the Clyde brother’s with Alfie playing blindside flanker for the 3\u2019s and Jonathon playing inside centre for the 4\u2019s. Alfie again on the winning side for the 3\u2019s will also have plenty to gloat about, scoring 2 tries in the derby match, the first midway through the second half cutting an inside line of\u00a0Dean Talbot<\/a>\u00a0at first centre, coming face to face with his brother before side stepping and racing clear to score below the posts.
\nDespite the game being played between two sides from the Ballymoney Club the game was a hard fought battle with no quarter given and none asked. Right from the first whistle the 4\u2019s attacked the 3\u2019s from the kick off sending their big runners in waves of attack down the 10 channel, however the defence of the 3\u2019s matched everything offer and knocked them back on several occasions. The larger than usual support didn’t have long to wait for the first score of the game. From turn over ball the 3\u2019s took several phases up the middle with the forwards making good yardage, the ball was sent blind with\u00a0Russell Irwin<\/a>\u00a0making good ground, passing to\u00a0Lewis Murphy<\/a>\u00a0who drew his man before feeding\u00a0Neil Campbell<\/a>\u00a0to race to line to score in the corner being chased by Andy McNaugher. The conversion was missed by Nathaniel Steel. From the kick off the 4\u2019s wanted to get the next score but good defence from the 3\u2019s repelled anything that ran at them. The next score of the game fell to the 3\u2019s, from a lost lineout by the 4\u2019s,\u00a0Adam Hewitt<\/a>\u00a0exited the resulting maul with the ball and raced 40 metres pushing aside wannabe tacklers before scoring close to the posts. Again the conversion was missed by Nathaniel, the score now 10-0. The final score of the half was a nice try by Nathaniel selling a lovely dummy before racing clear to score, again missing the conversion. Nathaniel commented he had left his kicking boots at home. The score at half time 15-0.
\nThe half time team talk was all about looking after the ball better and not giving away as many penalties, the penalties in the first half spoiling many opportunities to extend the lead.
\nFrom the first whistle the 3\u2019s started brightly, with strong running from the backs and forwards. This gave\u00a0Chris Morrison<\/a>\u00a0the space to use his electric pace and score the 4th try of the game, converted by Nathaniel. Not wanting to through in the towel the 4\u2019s came back strongly and after some strong running from their forwards namely John McFetridge, Beefy, Leon Beattie and Alywn Stevenson, Slippy(captain) feed the ball to his backs and with numbers on the left\u00a0Ben Carty<\/a>\u00a0scored in the corner. Peter Elliot\u2019s conversion from wide left bounced of the post and fell the wrong direction leaving the score 22-5. The growing number of supporters had to wait for the next the try, but not too long with Alfie beating his brother to score the 3\u2019ss 5th try followed not long after with his 2nd and the 3\u2019s 6th try of the day. Nathaniel converting the second to leave the score now 36-5. The final score of the day coming on the 75th minute was a charging running from prop\u00a0Andy Brown<\/a>\u00a0scoring below the posts but not converted by Nathaniel to leave the final score 41-5.
\nCaptain Dean left the field the much happier of the two captains, but a lot of praise must also go to the whole of the 4th XV who stuck to the task asked of them and never lay down. If they can continue in the same vein for the rest of season they start to win more games and we all wish them the best of luck next week at home to Holywood. The 3rd XV take a well-earned week off next week, since Christmas drawing against a very strong Coleraine side, avenging a heavy loss earlier in the season against Instonians and progressing to the next round of the cup, not a bad start to the New Year.
\nSpecial mention must go to both\u00a0Andy Brown<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Adam Hewitt<\/a>\u00a0scoring their first senior tries today. The man of the match award goes to Alfie Clyde.<\/p>\n

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Ballymoney 3rd XV win and progress to round 2 of the cup by\u00a0Neil Campbell   Ballymoney 3rd XV win and progress to round 2 of the cup On a cold but dry Saturday afternoon Ballymoney 3\u2019s took to the field to face Ballymoney 4\u2019s in the first round of the Cup. If the fact that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[400],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ballymoney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61876","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=61876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61885,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61876\/revisions\/61885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}