On Saturday Armagh travelled to Clogher with a certain degree of trepidation due to the fact that the lousy weather had robbed the team of any match experience since beating Ballymoney on January 15th. This coupled with the reputation that Clogher has earned over the past few seasons – It’s always very hard to bring league points home from Fivemiletown!
The game kicked off in near perfect conditions without any wind advantage for either side while the thermometer stuck at 3 degrees it felt mighty to get back to watch rugby from a touchline rather than from an armchair. Armagh immediately took the initiative and applied the pressure by having a try disallowed when the referee judged the ball to have been ‘held up’. For the first quarter of the game Armagh camped in the Clogher ‘22’ but the home side’s defence held firm. Armagh’s left winger Matty Irwin seemed to be heading for a try twenty three minutes into the game only a handling error five metres short of the line prevented the visitors from getting points on the board.
A Clogher back was penalized for not releasing the ball after a tackle in front of their posts. Adam Going failed to capitalise when his kick went wide. Two minutes later saw Armagh penalized for straying off side, the Clogher Out half chose the touch option and put the ball into Armagh’s ‘22’. Armagh managed to turnover the home side and fed the ball out to centre, Andy Holmes, who made a beautiful break and appeared to cut through the Clogher line with ease. But was tackled by the defending full back only ten metres short of the line. Just before the half time break Armagh’ flanker, Andy Hughes, burst through the Clogher line and off-loaded the ball to lock forward Brian Bassett who passed to left winger, Matty Irwin, who touched down in the left corner. Adam Gowing converted to leave the score 0-3 at the break.
The Clogher team came out after the break with renewed vigour. They adopted the tactics of ‘keeping it tight’ and to retain possession at all costs. This effectively robbed Armagh of the chance of feeding the ball to their backs. Indeed, after only twelve minutes into the second half disaster struck. Clogher were awarded a pushover try. To add to this the try was converted leaving the score at 7-7. Clogher’s gander was now up and they were starting to dominate in every area of the game. They were rucking the ball very effectively and Armagh appeared to struggle to get their hands on the ball whilst Clogher appeared, to be gaining confidence by the minute! Armagh’s number 8, James Mortom was penalized for a late tackle but the kick at goal went wide. Clogher were then penalized for not releasing the ball in a tackle in front of their posts but again the kick went wide. Fifteen minutes before the final whistle saw Clogher penalized again, but this time Adam Going was successful with the kick. This put the score to 7-10. Shortly after the restart the Clogher tight head prop forward was yellow carded for going over the ball in a ruck. Armagh’s centre, Matty Maguire, was then sin-binned for a high tackle. The final whistle came not a minute too soon for the visitors who were only too glad to leave this game with a win and four league points in the bag. Clogher, on the other hand, secured a losing bonus point but the felt that if the game had run on a few more minutes the tables could have been turned!
