Hinch Strong Finish To Claim Victory In Tyrone
A large support made the journey down the M1 on Friday evening for the Ulster Bank League fixture against Dungannon at Stevenson Park. “Friday Night Lights” is part of the new league structure with the big local derby games featured in the province when it doesn’t clash with an Ulster home game. By the size of large turnout at Dungannon and the quality of the game that ensued, “Friday Night Lights” has to be deemed a success.
The visitors started the contest playing away from the town and they quickly settled into the game with scrum half Aaron Cairns directing play with a number of good darting runs.
Despite their territorial advantage the Hinch were the first to concede points. Dungannon took the lead in the 10th minute after a Hinch scrum on their 5-metre line collapsed and Paddy Jackson converted to give Gannon a 3-0 lead.
The Hinch hit back in great style on the15 minute mark after a great break by Aaron Cairns created room for Jonny Madden to continue the attack. Cairns moved the quick ball wide to David Nicholson taking a great line; the Hinch fullback in full flight cut the Dungannon fence wide open putting winger Robin Harte into space. Harte almost made the line but was stopped by a great cover tackle from Gannon winger Conor Gaston who then received a yellow card for deliberately preventing the quick release of the ball. James Lash stepped up and converted the goal to take the score to 3 points apiece.
Despite having 14 men, the home struck again when Paul McKenzie picked up a loose pass from Lash to Thompson, just inside the Hinch 22. As McKenzie headed for the line Nicholson made the tackle, but a Hinch player impeded a support player giving Jackson an easy 3 points in front of the posts taking Gannon 3 points clear at 6-3.
Just as Gaston returned for the home side in the 25th minute they lost the services of hooker Adam Duhig in the 26th minute the Dungannon man was too aggressive with his rucking at the breakdown.
In the 33rd minute Hinch kicked a penalty to the Gannon 5 meter line. The lineout was secured by Chris Napier and Cairns moved the ball through a couple of phases before the it found the hands of Aaron Ferris who did very well to stay on his feet as he battled his past Conor Gaston to score in the corner. Lash failed with the conversion attempt to leaving the Hinch with a narrow 6-8 lead.
In the last minute of first half Gannon forced play deep into the Hinch 22 picking and driving the forward drive finally reached the visitors line where flanker Ali Birch picked up and attacked the blind side crossing for a well worked score. Jackson failed to add the extras to leave the home side with an 11-8 advantage at halftime.
Hinch messed up the restart with a Hinch player taking a knockdown from an offside position and Jackson converted with a well-struck penalty goal to increase the Dungannon lead to 14-8.
The County Down men made the perfect reply when just a minute later Paddy McAllister took a crash ball on the Dungannon 22 and smashed his way through numerous tackles to score beside the posts. Lash added the extras to take the Hinch into the lead 14-15.
Jackson missed with a penalty attempt in the 49th minute, but a fumble from David Nicholson deep in his 22 gave the home side a great attacking scrum in the 54th minute. The ball was won and moved left with great accuracy and pace to give Chris Cochrane the space to cross for a well-taken score. Jackson added the extra 2 points and the home side had taken the lead again 21-14.
With 13 minutes remaining the Hinch to their credit never gave up with Stuart Morrow and James Thompson a constant torture in the midfield. Add to that mix David Nicholson and Hinch had real firepower in their attack. In the 67th minute prop Kyle McCall made great ground into the Gannon half of the field where Cairns made good used of the quick ball firing it wide to Stuart Morrow at full pace. The big Hinch centre powered his way into the Gannon 22 passing to James Thompson who changed the angle of attack. Thompson jinked past a couple of defenders but still made ground, then as he was about to go to ground he gave a lovely off-load to David Nicholson. With a wall of blue and white jerseys in front of him Nicholson managed to dance his way past a couple of defenders taking three Dungannon men over the line with him to score a wonderful try. Lash needed to convert from out wide to take the Hinch back into the lead and his effort bisected the uprights to taking the Hinch 21-22 clear.
Dungannon looked all at sea in the final 10 minutes with the Hinch controlling possession. Nicholson, Morrow and Thompson all continued to cause problems and Aaron Ferris had a couple of great runs down the left wing just halted short of the line on one occasion.
With 5 minutes remaining the visitors were awarded a penalty on halfway and Lash struck it beautifully to take the Hinch 21-25 clear. There was no way back for the Tyrone men and the Hinch deservedly took the 4 points with Gannon holding onto the losing bonus point.
Hinch stay top of Division 1B leading Buccaneers by a single point, the Athlone side have also one three from three. This week there is a break form the All Ireland League rugby with the Hinch taking on City of Derry at Ballymacarn Park in the Ulster Senior Cup. Kick-off is at 2.30pm.
Ballynahinch: Scorers: 25pts
James Lash 2 pens 2 con
Aaron Ferris 1 Try
Paddy McAllister 1 Try
David Nicholson 1 Try
Dungannon: Scorers: 21pts
Paddy Jackson 3 pens 1 con
Ali Birch 1 Try
Chris Cochrane 1 Try
Ballynahinch
15 David Nicholson 14 Aaron Ferris 13 Stuart Morrow 12 James Thompson 11 Robin Harte 10 James Lash 9 Aaron Cairns 8 James Simpson 7 Josh Donaldson 6 Jamie Kirk 5 Jonny Madden 4 Chris Napier 3 Kyle McCall 2 Neil Hanna (Captain) 1 Paddy McAllister
Replacements
16 Greg Taylor 17 Mark McCormick 18 Jonny Graham 19 Andrew Harper 20 Jonny Simpson
Dungannon
15 Peter Nelson 14 Conor Gaston 13 Paul McKenzie 12 Chris Farrell 11 Chris Cochrane 10 Paddy Jackson 9 Jason Bloomfield 8 Ali Birch 7 Calum Threlfall 6 Derek Hall 5 Mark Jenkinson 4 Craig Miller 3 Mark Farquhar 2 Adam Duhig 1 Glen Sinnamon
Replacements:
16 Phil Whyte 17 Timmy Smith 18 Rowan Halsall 19 Stuart McCloskey 20 Mark O’Shea
Ballynahinch 3rdXV 46pts Portadown 2ndXV 0pts
David Workman reports From Ballymacarn Park
Hinch 3’s scored a resounding win by 46 points to nil over Portadown 2’s on Saturday thus recording their fourth league victory on the trot. Well led by the veteran Andy Glenn the Hinch dominated up front and were totally in control of the set pieces through the efforts of David Steele and John Gunson in particular.
Hinch led 15 – 0 at half-time from a brace of tries by the impressive No 8 Keith Dickson and one from outhalf Robbie Irvine who managed to hit the woodwork with two conversions.Portadown to their credit made life difficult for the third quarter of the match but Keith Dickson again got the touchdown for his hatrick with Irvine converting (22-0).
Hinch were rampant in the final quarter with Gunsun, Ryan McKenna, young Jordan Graham and Jason Nugent all getting over the whitewash and with two further conversions by Irvine the final score was 46 points to nil.
Hinch now face a big derby game on Saturday when they are away to great rivals Banbridge.
4’s Battle For Great Away Win At Gibson Park
Malone 3rd XV 22pts Ballynahinch 4thXV 24pts
Ian Wallace reports from Gibson Park
Ballynahinch visited Malone at Gibson park on Sat and the Hinch were made feel very welcome from the kick off.
At that first ruck Calvin Morton chipped his tooth and Ian Wallace got blown out of the ruck on his backside with a well executed backwards roll. We managed to still have the ball after a couple of backward moving phases for Geordy to kick us out of our own 22, all in the space of about 30 seconds!
It turns out that turning up half arsed doesn’t really work, especially not against opposition like Malone.
From the line out the red socks ran aggressive lines and rucked hard, really hard, counter rucking and offering nothing to the men in green on a plate.
It was one of those moments were you could crawl back into your cage and let it blow over or take it on the chin, roll up your sleeves and stand your ground. Thankfully we decided to pull up our lip and go toe to toe.
This was going to be won or lost up front where we had a mix of experience and youth with the veterans Andy Glenn, Paul Hanna, Ian Smith and then Alistair Gordon, Mike Evans, Davy Dodd, fore mentioned Morton and Wallace making up the youth.
The ball was moved with pace to test the Malone men’s fitness which became stretched at times, and their backs had to get sucked in at the breakdown. In a short time we found ourselves advancing well inside their 22 when they intercepted from a set piece move to score.
Raging! Despite this we new their weakness and our plan, and set about putting it into effect.
The scrum and lineouts were 100% turning over ball several times, and our backs were better, but it was still the Malone men’s rucking aggression that posed the biggest threat. They continued to smash in hard which gave them quick ball, however their backs could not measure up to their pack and proved no real threat at all for Nicky Jones, Josh McMullan and Carl Larkin.
Geordy Shaw spotted men out of position and floated a cross field kick for Andy Barr to score in the corner we missed the conversion. The young referee being assessed and with two of his own touch judges blew us up for a penalty and Malone didn’t miss. That took us into half time 10-7.
We kept the same game plan only with added aggression at the breackdown. The pressure paid off with a Malone man being sent off for 10 min we capitalised on our opportunity and scored again with Barr receiving another kick through from Geordy. We missed the conversion. The forwards now got hungry for a try and with some good phases being threw together Paul Hanna rose mightily from the back of a ruck ball under arm, eyes focused on the white wash among a sea of green that open up, then the oil light came on and a last minute tackle from Malone stalled his attempt. Mike Evans then picked and went again to score against the post. This time Dan Carson converted the extra points. It seemed at 10-24 we could put on the old cruise control, but Malone fought on with some great work from the experienced forwards zig zagging their way with pick and go, they crawled, literally over the line for the referee to award the try despite the double movement, however credit for the work before hand. Malone clearly weren’t finished, with a converted try needed to draw.
They pressed hard, again up front, making far too much ground. The direct route seeming effective they sneaked in again and dropped the ball over the line but again the ref gave it anyway. 14 Usain Bolts and Paul Hanna in green jerseys stood poised on the try line under the posts to charge the conversion, he missed with the last kick of the game too.
A fantastic steel of a win at Malone who in credit played extremely well upfront in the lose, a great lesson for the hinch? Time will tell how we start the next match.
