Nutty Krust U18 Tournament Omagh RFC v Banbridge RFC 25th February 2015
The third, and final, of the Round 1 Nutty Krust games took place at Portadown RFC when Omagh RFC U18’s played Banbridge RFC U18’s in front of an enthusiastic band of supporters on Wednesday evening. The Banbridge U18 will be wondering how they managed to let a game they dominated for long periods of time slip with the Omagh U18 team emerging as 10-8 winners.
The Banbridge team started the game in a very positive manner and had the Omagh team on the back foot from the start. They took a 3-0 lead when Cameron Cromie converted a penalty opportunity with a monster kick from just inside his own half. Three minutes later this became 8-0 when the Banbridge U18 backs, with Jay Pinion, Cameron Cromie and Robin Sinton combining well, took play deep into the Omagh “Red Zone” A clever off-load to Ross Haughey, who was running a great support line, finished with Ross touching down for a fine try which was not converted. The Banbridge U18 team maintained the high tempo they had set from the start of the game but could not find any further way through an Omagh defence that was now more organised. Towards the end of the first half, the Omagh team mounted a rare attack on the Banbridge line. A Banbridge knock on was gathered by Mark Dougherty who counter attacked down his right wing. An infringement at the breakdown by the Banbridge team saw the Omagh team gain a lineout on the Banbridge 22m line. The Omagh team won the ball and drove the resultant maul towards the Banbridge line. Another penalty saw change of tactic from the Omagh team. A quickly tapped penalty finished with Jake Cunningham crashing over the Banbridge line to touch down for an unconverted try to reduce the arrears to 8-5 at the break.
The start of the second half saw both teams give away a number of penalties which caused the flow of the game to become somewhat disjointed. The Banbridge midfield partnership of Cameron Cromie and Robin Sinton did manage to create a number of possible opportunities for their colleagues. However, a mixture of poor final passes and resolute Omagh defence kept the Omagh line intact. With ten minutes of the game remaining the Banbridge team, with the Omagh line literally at their mercy, turned the ball over. The Omagh hooker, Mark Hopton Brown, scooped the ball up on his try line and set off on a tremendous run up the full length of the pitch. He outpaced a number of despairing Banbridge defenders and won the foot race to score a try in the corner. The conversion attempt was unsuccessful but the Omagh team now had a 10-8 lead. The Banbridge team recovered sufficiently well from this setback to put themselves into positions where they might have won the game. However, kickable penalty opportunities were missed and the Omagh team held on to record a hard-earned 10-8 win at the no side whistle.
