Armoy overcame a stuffy Ballymoney V in a match that wasn’t for Rugby purists.
The Armoy pack set the pace early on and in the opening10 minutes they kept the Ballymoney men encamped in their own 22. This ultimately resulted in a penalty to Armoy which was converted by Jarvis Traynor.
From the kick off the ball was kicked into the hands of Armoy no 8 Ian Caldwell who ran at the money defence.After a 30 yard rampage he offloaded to wing forward Daniel Ramage who continued to charge forward. However the Ballymoney defence held firm and stole the ball thanks to some inventive rucking. They fed the ball out to their backs who then ran at the Armoy back line, however a loose pass was intercepted by Armoy scrum half Paul Austin who ran from the half way line and under the posts for a score. Converted by Traynor.
Ballymoney then asserted themselves and had a spell of possession and forced Armoy to defend. The Armoy defence held firm during this spell but lost wing forward Daniel Ramage to the sin bin for a tackle that was deemed to be a bit high by the men from Ballymoney and ultimately the referee. While down to 14 players Armoy held out comfortably and pressurised Ballymoney into making mistakes. 
From a Ballymoney attack their out half kicked the ball forward. This was gathered by Armoy out half Jarvis Traynor who placed a neat low kick beyond the on rushing Ballymoney players into no mans land. Armoy no 8 Ian Caldwell was the quickest to react and should some neat footballing skills to kick the ball from 30 meters out and over for a try. Unconverted.
No sooner had Daniel Ramage rejoined the fray Armoy were again down to 14 players as Jarvis Traynor was fortunate to only receive a yellow card for a late tackle on the young Ballymoney no 10.This time Ballymoney made their numerical advantage count with 2 converted penalties before the interval.
Half time Ballymoney V 6 Armoy 15
From their own kick off Armoy pressurised the Money defence but were sadly lacking in making the right pass and were failing to secure good ruck ball which was consistently spoiled by the Ballymoney defence. This was the theme for the first 20 minutes of the second half Armoy having most possession and territory but were unable to convert this into points on the scoreboard. This pattern was eventually broken by the most unlikely source. A period of Armoy pressure resulted in some good go forward rucking. With an Armoy ruck on the Ballymoney 5 meter line and 5 meters from the touchline Armoy scrum half got a shout from loosehead prop Neil Porterfield to go blind the ball was popped into the hands of the big Scot who crashed over at pace for a try. Unconverted.
The next score came courtesy of some good individual play from Armoy scrum half Paul Austin. From a ruck inside the Ballymoney 22 he pick up and ran into a gap, with 2 Ballymoney players poised to halt him he got a call from Daniel Ramage who was running in support, the scrum half should great awareness to flick the ball over his shoulder into the hands of Ramage who ran under the posts for a score. Converted.
Armoy now had their tails up and went all out for another score. From a series of rucks the ball found it’s way into the hands of Ramage who burst through 2 tackles on the wing into the corner and unopposed in the dead ball area under the posts to touch down for his second try of the day. Converted.
Final score Ballymoney V 6 Armoy 34
After the match Armoy captain Gareth Christie rightly commented that although we had won it was a poor performance given the standard of Rugby we all know we can play. This can only be addressed if we get people out to training on Wednesday nights. Next week Armoy travel to play current league leaders Inishowen so only a top drawer performance will do if we are to come away with a win.
A big thank you also goes to all of those Armoy supporters who turned out to cheer us on.
Armoy team
C O’Brien,M McConnaghie,G McConnaghie,S McMullan,J Cassley,J Traynor,P Austin,N Porterfield,A Bartlett,D Linton,D McClafferty,G Christie,K Greenlaw,D Ramage,I Caldwell Subs R Gardner,M Walker,M McClafferty.
