Following last week’s narrow home victory over Navan Armagh were keen to reassert their top half league position when they travelled back into Leinster to meet Boyne. Last year this was, indeed, a memorable fixture with Boyne coming out just ahead by a couple of points. All the pre-match warm up briefing emphasised that Andrew Hughes’s side were adamant that they were not going to be bullied off their game in this confrontation! Bearing this in mind the Boyne tem had a formidable record and they had not achieved their five league wins without effort!
The Boyne club must be congratulated for their fine efforts in their efforts to develop their club facilities. Despite the heavy rain which had fallen all week the pitch was in fine condition thanks to the clubs admiral efforts in raising €285-00 which had been used to lay a beautiful playing surface complete with excellent floodlighting.
The home side kicked off with a stiff breeze at their backs and it became immediately obvious that both sides were very evenly matched, not only in their determination but also in their styles of play. Both teams expressed a desire to play a wide, expansive style of game. One factor was immediately obvious in that the Boyne forwards were much heavier than the Armagh pack. With this in mind to see the Armagh forwards dominate almost every scrum and every line-out was encouraging. The domination, however, was inverted when the Boyne hooker, Pusi, touched down and team captain Niall Kerbey converted to put the home team 7-0 ahead. Amazingly, from the restart Armagh forced their way over the Boyne line when a rolling maul thundered forward and team captain Phill Hill was credited with touch down. Unfortunately, the breezes pulled Steenson’s conversion wide of the posts to leave te half time score at 7-5.
With the fresh wind at their backs, the Armagh side started the play with a renewed vigour but against the run of play, the Boyne open side flanker scored a gritty try as he broke from a lineout. This was, again, converted buy the home captain, Kerbey, to put the score to 14-5. Armagh continued to dominate both the open and set play but failed to penetrate the strong Boyne defence. This, dominance became obvious when after continued scrummaging infringements on the Boyne line the referee was forced to award Armagh a penalty try. The conversion brought the score to 14-12 and into the range of Armagh gaining a losing bonus point! The game ended with Armagh exerting strong pressure on the Boyne line but, in effect, the final 14-12 scoreline reflected a fair reflection on the game. Neither side seemed to be keen enough to take the initiative to force their dominance on the game. After all, when Armagh were able to dominate almost every line-out and scrum why could they not manage to dominate the resultant territory and score tries? To leave Boyne with a losing bonus point is a situation Armagh would have relished this time last season so perhaps the Armagh supporters have grown to expect too much every Saturday!
Armagh have no fixture next week so they have a week to reflect prior to travelling to Ballymena to play a game in the Ulster Senior league.
