ARMAGH 18 ARDS 0
Having narrowly lost their last two All-Ireland League games to Munster sides Nenagh & Thumond Armagh were keen to get back into winning ways when they entertained Ards at The Palace Grounds on Saturday afternoon. Despite their low league position the Ards fixture is always a difficult game to come away with a favourable result. Last year Ards won In Hamilton Park when they comfortably out-played the Armagh side. Armagh’s current form was always going to be at the back of the home team’s mind as they took the field for their last home All-Ireland league match of the season.
From the kick off Armagh made it clear that they were keen to correct their current record. An Ards defender was penalised for failing to release after a tackle. Richard Reaney’s kick was on target to open the points at 3-0. Shortly after second row forward, Stephen Morton, scored a fine try which was converted by Richard Reaney to bring the score up to 10-0. another penalty kick fro Reaney’s put the score up to 13-0 at the break. Both sides had second row forwards sin-binned for killing the ball in separate incidents. The first half was brought to a halt when Armagh’s James Morton was taken out in the air in a line-out. After some careful attention from the Order of Malta James was taken off to hospital with severe lower back pain.
The remainder of the game continued to be punctuated with both sides committing multiple handling errors. Armagh’s centre, Seamus Mallon, burst his way over to score the only points in the second half.
The win gave Armagh four league points but failed to promote them past the sixth position. With only one more game remaining Armagh can realistically only hope to see themselves in this mid table at the end of the season.
After the final whistle the good news that James Morton had been discharged from hospital with severe back spasm was unanimously greeted with relief. An indication of the sterling work going on by the Armagh Youth and Mini rugby coaching team was that out of the fifteen Armagh players all had come through the mini rugby route except two. The exceptions being Seamus Mallon & Mark Riddell who joined the club from Dungannon.
The final game is set for April 12th when Armagh travel south to Midleton again into Munster. This game will, again, prove to be difficult as Midleton have more than proved themselves capable in their first season in the league since suffering relegation.
