Josh Cromie about to score one of his three trys for the U17s against Armagh yesterday.
Thanks to John Kerr for the photo.
BANN 4’s STAGE LATE COMEBACK BANBRIDGE 4THs 29 Lisburn 3rds 27
November 23, 2013
Bann 4ths welcomed Lisburn 3rds to Rifle Park for their second home game of the season with a team mixed with youth and experience.
Bann started the stronger of the two teams and opened the scoring early on with Andy Wilson powering over in the corner after a quick pass from hooker Ryan Ringland, Jeff Dodds adding the 2 points with sublime touchline conversion.
Lisburn mounted serious pressure from the restart and kept the ball in the Bann ’22 before finally breaking the defence and returning a try with conversion.
The Lisburn pack seemed the stronger of the two and showed this with their powering play, if Bann were going to have any chance of winning this game it was going to be done by getting g quick ball to their young back line, with a great combination of Kris Coleman and Jeff Dodds at 9 and 10 the ball was always quick to come back to the waiting pair of Matthew Kerr and Ben Cross, and after a speedy phase of play Bann scored in the corner with a well executed try from Matthew Kerr, again Dodds converted.
With half time fast approaching Lisburn retained the ball and their forwards created a series of rolling mauls close to the line and subsequently scored with 4 minutes left in the half.
A clash of heads saw Jonny Sleator out for the rest of the game, requiring stitches on a nasty cut above his eye.
Lisburn took the half time lead with a penalty on the stroke of half time.
HT 14-17
With Bann now playing with 14 men, things were about to get a lot tougher.
And the extra man showed from the off with Lisburn controlling the first 10 minutes of the second half, running in a try from the back of a line out, with the score at 14-22, Bann started to up their game, with solid pack play from Thomas Thornton, Roger McBride and Andy Armstrong, all gaining yardage when they got the ball.
Lisburn started turning the heat up a bit and ran in another try with 20 mins left in the game.
Lisburn lost a player due to a head injury and were forced to play the remainder of the game with 14 men, and that’s when Bann seized the opportunity, firstly with Kris Coleman taking the ball from the back of a scrum and dodging a few tired Lisburn players to score with Jeff Dodds adding the conversion.
Bann then got a penalty which was slotted home by Dodds.
With the score now 24-27 Bann needed a try to seal the deal, and after a great run by Robert Moorhead and Chris Berry, the ball was off loaded to Ben Cross who showed great skill and determination to power over the line from 40 yards out and grab his first senior try for Banbridge, with 5 minutes left on the clock and Bann now 2 points ahead the final whistle couldn’t come quick enough!
With a final score of 29-27, the Bann men walked off the pitch with their heads held high knowing that the hard work had paid off.
