On Saturday the “Devels” travelled to Rifle Park to play Banbridge 2s in their first game of the season and the first game of the new Ulster 2nd XV Conference League in what proved to be a very exciting, but punishing game.
The home side won the toss and elected to play with a strong winds to their backs and their outhalf made good this advantage with accurate kicking, however the Quins side were to dominate the play in the opening 10 minutes with excellent ball retention resulting in most of the game being played in the Ban half. In attack they were guilty of being too lateral at first but soon adjusted this allowing them to put together some good attacking moves, however Ban were good in the defence and soon a turn over allowed them to make their way into the visitors half where they earned a penalty and elected to kick with the strong supporting wind, the kick was missed which was a let off and against the run of play for the Quins team.
Ban regained the ball after the drop out and attacked using good depth of runners but their predictability of using inside passes was well defended by the visitors and Ban were unable to come away with any scores.
As the game progressed the Quins pack dominated play but the strong wind in their faces made fast accurate ball to the backs hard and gave the home side time to defend.
As the half came close to an end Ban were awarded a scrum 10 mtrs out from Quins line, poor positioning of the referee was exploited by the alert Ban scrumhalf using the referee to block a Quins tackler and he put his winger in for an unconverted try. The halftime score stayed at 5 – 0 for the home team.
The second half started with Banbridge stepping up to try and build on their try but again Quins defended well causing turnover ball, however they failed to build on this and also blindside flanker McKee (PK) took a shoulder injury, he remained on the pitch but was unable to make his trademark tackles. Soon a prolonged attack resulted on a number of attacking scrums for the home side on Quins 5 mtr line. They held out well until winger Peter Ferguson injured his ankle and had to leave the field, this left the defence more weakened. A good push in the scrum on the hit gave Ban quick ball however Quins flanker Alistair Scott (Babs) made a great tackle causing a maul to form, the ball came back to the Ban scrumhalf who knocked it on, unseen by the referee beside him, quick ball to the undefended wing let them in for there second try. Although there had been an infringement Banbridge deserved this score from the pressure they had put on the weakened Quins side.
Quins won the ball from the restart from good follow up from their forwards and put together some good passage of play resulting in a great pass by outhalf Matt Mullan (cabbage) to Finton Hillard setting him on a 30 mtr run through the home defence to score just right of the posts, Mullan converted score 10 -10.
Just as things were looking up Quins centre, Ricky McKee came off an neck injury leaving Quins with 13 players on the pitch and one of these with an injury. They held out well, hard tackles and killing the ball meant Ban were unable to take advantage of the numerical overlap but Quins could not hold out for long and a scrum on the halfway let Banbridge winger run down the blind side to score their 3rd try, but pressure form what was left of Quins back line meant he had to score out wide and the conversion was missed. score 15 – 10
On the 30 minute mark “Devels” out half Mullan took a knee injury and had to be removed off the pitch leaving 12 players on the pitch, one of which was the injured PK. They again stood up to the task and Banbridge were unable to create anything against the weaken side until almost the last play when hands in the ruck resulted in a penalty kick infront of the posts making the full time score 18 – 10 for Banbridge.
An excellent game for the neutral to watch and played by both sides in excellent spirit but praise must go to the visitors who dung deep and stopped a massive score being chalked up with effectively only 11 players on the pitch.
