Ballyclare scored five tries in this Northern Bank Schools Cup third round tie as they comfortably saw off the challenge from Rainey Endowed.
The weather conditions hampered play at the start of the match with a heavy mist which made kicking and catching difficult during the first ten minutes of the game . Ballyclare started strongly, spending increasingly long periods in the Rainey half. However Ballyclare failed to capitalise but managed to force a scrum near the Rainey goal line. The Ballyclare scrum forced an error and Ballyclare scrum half, Chris Millar, pounced on the open ball and dived over the line for the first score of the match. Chris Harvey was unable to the convert.
Ballyclare kept the pressure on but were unable to capitalise on enterprising play from the captain, David Clarke, who lead the team well throughout the match. Late on in the first half, Rainey managed to create a few chances of their own resulting in their out half slotting over a over the penalty to take the half time score to 5-3.
Ballyclare came out of the blocks quickly at the restart and made headway up to the Rainey 22 metre line with Jonny Holmes finding a nice touch kick from a penalty. Ballyclare won the line-out, they were dominant the whole match, after good work from second row Trevor McClintock. The home pack drove right to the line and forced Rainey to collapse the maul resulting in a penalty try which Chris Harvey converted.
Ballyclare continued to kick their way into the Rainey half and they benefited from this when Rainey gave away a cheap penalty for holding on at the ruck, just outside of the 22 metre line. Chris Harvey put the ball through the posts to make the score 15-3.
Rainey struggled to string phases together and Ballyclare, dominating the breakdown, forced Rainey deep into their own half. After a few phases a desperate effort to clear the ball, ended up in the hands of Ballyclare’s out half, Jonny Holmes, who fell over the line for the third try. Chris Harvey added the two points.
Ballyclare spent more in the Rainey half and created several chances to increase the score and before long a try from Chris Anderson, capping a fine personal performance, put the game beyond doubt for Ballyclare with 10 minutes to go. Chris Harvey once again produced the goods for the conversion.
In the closing minutes Trevor McClintock finished off a great performance with the final score of the match to give Ballyclare a well deserved win by 34 – 3.
Report: Jordan Annett
