Saturday saw Armagh entertain Dungannon at the Palace Grounds to play their eleventh game in the Ulster Senior League. By this stage Dungannon, with their unbeaten record, had secured the league title and were obviously keen to retain their unbeaten record. So far this season Armagh had won only four games from ten and, to date, did not have a great record of performances in this league.
Armagh were justifiably apprehensive about this local derby since the last time the two teams met was in season 1996-97 when Dungannon routed Armagh with a stinging 106-06 result!
Armagh second’s played Dungannon two’s in the Second Fifteen League with a 1-00pm kick off when Armagh had secured a 24-06 victory so the pressure was doubly on the senior team to put on a special performance!
As the game kicked off the rain arrived and a steady drizzle marred the whole first half. This made handling difficult and both teams made an uncommon list of minor errors as a result! Despite the conditions both teams set out their intentions early in the game that they both wanted to play an open, fast game. The scoring was opened when Armagh were caught handling in a ruck and the Dungannon full-back, Michael Lawton, landed a fine penalty to put the score at 0-3. Armagh replied with two penalties and James McBriar was accurate with both to put the score to 6-3 with fourteen minutes on the clock.
Four minutes later ex Armagh winger, Stuart Lester, scored a fine try in the right corner after a spirited run down the touch-line. Again Michael Lawton was accurate with the conversion to put Dungannon 10-3 ahead. A period of scrappy play followed and was interrupted just before the break when Armagh were awarded a penalty try when the Dungannon out-half was seen to ‘take out’ the Armagh winger on his way to score in the left corner.
McBriar landed the conversion to put the score at 13-10 at the break.
The rain was easing by this stage and the second half started off with Armagh’s winger, Josh Morton, score in the right corner following a kick ahead enabling him to get round the Dungannon defence. The conversion went wide but the encouraging score 18-10 seemed to encourage the home team to shake off the stigma of the previous heavy defeat!
Ten minutes later saw Armagh again penalised for off-side and the accurate boot of Lawton brought the score up to 18-13. Again Armagh were seen to dig deep and their forwards were beginning to win a generous supply of ball in both open an set pieces. This confidence was rudely thwarted when Michael Lawton burst through and scored at the home posts. To add to the pain he also converted to put the score to a tantalising 18-20!
Despite playing more than their fair share of the rugby Armagh was facing another one of their familiar narrow defeats. But, not to be outdone, they again strained on the reserves and continued to launch several attacks on the Dungannon line. One notable attempt was a fine break by centre, John Faloon, who just failed to get downward pressure on touch-down. All seemed lost when a line-out was secured inside the Dungannon ‘22’ in the dying minutes of the game. The ball was passed to out-half McBriar who landed the deftest of drop goals to put the final score at 21-20. McBriar had missed two penalties and a conversion previously but all was forgiven.
At the final whistle the one point advantage held and the celebrations at this historic victory were fairly raucous. What with the second’s 24-06 and this win it was a fairly good indication that rugby is heading in the right direction in Armagh!
Next week sees the club return to All Ireland fixtures when we entertain Suttonians at The Palace Grounds. Suttonians also heavily defeated the Armagh side in their last meeting in 1997 so it will be interesting if Armagh can maintain their winning ways!
