Winning start to 2010 for Banbridge U19s

Bann U19s 32

WITH a backlog of fixtures the two teams jumped at the chance to play under floodlights last Wednesday evening, the first game either had played in 2010.

In fact this was the first game Bann’s U19s had played since December 5. A new year also brought a new captain for the Rifle Park side as Sam Boyd took over the reins from Stephen Irvine, who has moved up to the AIL team.

Boyd has been impressing for the senior Fourths side while the U19’s were out of action, turning a few heads with his barnstorming runs and hard tackles. The players and coaches of the U19s would also like to wish Stephen well in the senior team for which he has already proved capable.

Mark Doherty opened the scoring after only five minutes with a penalty after the home team failed to cope with the pressure from the Bann pack. The first try came after 20 minutes when Charles Gallagher barged his way over the line to touch down beside the posts. Doherty added the conversion.

Ten minutes later a catch and drive put Ulster U18 captain Jonny Murphy over for his fifth touchdown of the season. After a period of defending a long kick from out-half Andrew Morrison was chased the length of the pitch by wing Matthew Quinn who arguably played his best game in a Bann shirt.

He put the defence under pressure and gained a five metre scrum. Doherty picked up from the base of the scrum and dived over in the corner to put his team up 0-20 at half-time.

The lack of games didn’t show on the young team as they ran everything, with Owen Gallagher on his debut running strongly with ball and off-loading to his new team-mates. Matthew Copes as usual was hitting anything that moved, while David Adamson was his typical sound self at full-back.

Doherty, playing out of position at scrum half, scored his second of the day with a 30 metre run down the blind-side. With 10 minutes to go the Bann team were pressing and a quick lineout was gathered by Boyd who ran in from 20 metres, barging through three defenders and rounding four would-be tacklers to score the fifth and final try of the game. Doherty converted to leave the final score 0-32.

Although impressed by the scoring of five tries, coaches Kirkwood, Eadie and Forsythe were more pleased with the determination of the defence not to let Portadown cross their line. Even at 32 points up their captain could be heard barking instructions to his team-mates.

With Simon Adamson, Richard Henning, Clark McAllister and Nathan Martin from last season’s cup-winning team all unavailable it gave the coaches a look at some players out of position.

U17 players Daryl Fitzpatrick, Josh Watson and Stuart Cairns also got their first run outs for the 19’s and didn’t look out of place, with Daryl taking some great lineout ball.