Last night\u2019s opening match in the 32nd Annual Nutty Krust floodlit tournament saw the host club\u2019s U 19s finish as convincing first round winners against last year\u2019s beaten finalists Coleraine in an exciting encounter.<\/p>\n
The host\u2019s intentions were clear right from the kick off as they regained possession of out half Robert Thompson\u2019s kick and laid siege to the Coleraine line resulting in a try scored by full back Dale Conn. The conversion was missed but further Portadown pressure resulted in a penalty converted by out half Thompson to stretch the host\u2019s lead to 8-0.<\/p>\n
Coleraine seemed to be galvanised by this and hit back through a try by their impressive centre Chris Barber created by out half Paddy Mc Combe to narrow the gap to 8-5. Both sides continued to play attacking positive rugby and it was the locals who scored next to stretch their lead. A strong break by centre David Busby, whose strong running caused panic throughout the match in the Coleraine ranks, was stopped just short of the visitor\u2019s line. From the resulting scrum Portadown, and Ulster number 8, Luke Montgomery made a powerful surge and popped the ball off to centre Chris Cousens to score close to the posts. Out half Thompson added the conversion to extend Portadown\u2019s lead to 15-5.<\/p>\n
In keeping with the pattern of the match Coleraine then controlled the ball keeping the Portadown line under pressure. Unfortunately for them in one attack their influential out half, Paddy Mc Combe, badly injured an ankle and had to be taken to hospital. This, added to the earlier loss to injury of wing James Wikinson should have seen the end of Coleraine\u2019s challenge. It proved to have quite the opposite effect however as further pressure from the visitors led to a second score for them just before half time. Unfortunately the conversion was missed thus leaving the half time score 15-10 in the home side\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n
Coleraine started the second half strongly but a well organised Portadown defence held them out. In Portadown\u2019s first attack of the half a flowing backline move resulted in a second try for Man lf the Match Chris Cousens. Out half Thomson added the two points to stretch Portadown\u2019s lead to 22-10. Once again Coleraine\u2019s \u201cnever say die\u201d attitude saw them pressurise the Portadown line and only an adjudged forward pass kept the host\u2019s line intact. A superb break by the host team\u2019s centre Cousens from his own 22 metre line took play deep into the Coleraine half and led to the final try of the game by blindside flanker Josh Mc Cullough.
\nOutstanding for the visitors were No 8 Jamie Liken, out half Paddy Mc Combe and centre Chris Barber. For the locals prop Robert Morton, openside flanker Stuart Lynes, who won a lot of good lineout ball, and centres Busby and Cousens gave strong performances.<\/p>\n
Portadown now face the winners of next week\u2019s match between this season\u2019s U 19 League winners & All Ireland semi finalists, Malone and League runners up Ballynahinch in the second round. This promises be to be another excellent match involving the two form teams in Ulster at the moment. Kick is at 7.45 at Chambers Park next Wednesday (2nd. March). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night\u2019s opening match in the 32nd Annual Nutty Krust floodlit tournament saw the host club\u2019s U 19s finish as convincing first round winners against last year\u2019s beaten finalists Coleraine in an exciting encounter. The host\u2019s intentions were clear right from the kick off as they regained possession of out half Robert Thompson\u2019s kick and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[782,4556,781],"class_list":["post-9961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ulster-rugby","tag-coleraine-rugby","tag-nutty-krust-floodlit-tournament","tag-portadown-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961","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=9961"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9964,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961\/revisions\/9964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}