Belfast High School Former Pupils travelled to Civil Service to play a friendly on a wet and windy Saturday afternoon at Stormont. High School won a close match 19v13 scoring 3 tries against Services converted try and 2 penalties.
It was a game organised by the new Civil Service coaching team of Marty McGuigan and Michael Curran, to welcome the many newcomers to the Service side. Indeed, the game enabled the new Service coaching team to use all their replacements and observe their new players in action against a slick and experienced High School side. In many cases, players were moved out of their regular positions to observe their potential in other positions in the side.
57 Images here from BHSFP v Civil Service RFC – CLICK HERE TO VIEW –
Video1 of 5 here from BHSFP v Civil Service RFC. There are 4 more videos in the pictures link above – CLICK HERE TO VIEW Video 1 –
The wet windy weather meant that it was a forward dominated game and the experienced High School pack were able to score 2 converted first half tries with Service responding with 2 penalties from centre Peter Hoskins to leave the score line 14v6 at the interval.
With the weather improving in the second half both back lines began to run the ball more with high school scoring an unconverted try before Civil service Captain Dan Cartland scored an opportunistic solo effort which was converted to leave the score at 19v13 which is how the game finished. The game was played in excellent spirits with both sets of teams joining the spectators in the Pavilion afterwards, in fact the referee even joined in the fun when he deployed a deftly timed push to disrupt the High school post match team photo.
In Touch rugby would like to say a special thanks to Jake and Harry from the Civil Service Minis who help take photographs of the game.
