City of Derry Rugby Club continued their winning return to Senior Rugby when they defeated Dungannon at Stevenson Park in the Ulster Senior League on Wednesday night last. Bevan Lynch’s men scored three try’s which were impressive in their creation and clinical in their execution and marked this young team down as a force to be reckoned with when they begin All Ireland League action at the start of October after an absence of two seasons in Junior Rugby.
Dungannon began strongly and were 7pts up on five minutes through a Mark Riddle try which was converted by James Shiells. Richard McCarter and Shiells swapped penalties before Derry levelled the scored at 10pts all after 37 minutes, Simon Logue created a try for Stephen Corr and McCarter converted. Derry went into the lead on the stroke of half time when strong tackling by the Derry defence with Brian Prue and Tom Patton to the fore caused Dungannon to spill ball on the half way line. The Derry full back Peter Henderson picked the loose ball and sprinted in from 50 meters to score under the posts with McCarter converting to give his team a 17pts to 10pts half time lead.
Derry brought on Rodney Balfour and Richard Baird after the break and they both made an immediate impact. Balfour sorted Derry’s problems at scrum time and was outstanding for the rest of the game. Baird turned over Dungannon ball when they were attacking inside Derry 22 after five minutes and fed Richard McCarter who showed vision to identify lack of numbers on the short side and beat two men before sprinting 50 meters and drawing the last man to offload to William McCleery who sprinted in for his debut try which McCarter converted for a 24pts to 10pts lead.
Jason Bloomfield reduced the arrears with a Dungannon penalty as his team came more into the game. Derry has Stephen Simms sin binned on 15 minutes for persistently killing the ball and Bloomfield converted another penalty. Dungannon increased the pressure and Michael Lawton scored an unconverted try in the corner to reduce Derry’s lead to 3pts with 15 minutes gone. The bad news for Derry was that Richard McCarter injured his shoulder when Dungannon scored and had to leave the field.
City of Derry responded immediately to Dungannon’s score and brought play back into the opposition half and were rewarded with a penalty for offside, Richard Brady kicked an important score to increase Derry lead to 27pts to 21pts and with Simms returning from the bin the North West men defended stoutly to the end and were thoroughly deserving of this important victory.
City of Derry Forward’s Coach Mark Nicholl said after the game “as Coaches Bevan, Terry and I are very proud of the players tonight. We were put under severe pressure at times but our defensive system showed that when required the results of the work everyone has put in, reaps rewards. We turned over ball regularly against what should have been a better organised outfit but I suppose good players don’t always make a good team. I thought Peter Henderson at full back was outstanding tonight and his tackling was top drawer. Brian Prue did a great job for us and along with Rodney Balfour and they showed what great assets they are to our Squad”.
City of Derry’s next game is at home at Judges Road this Saturday to Instonians in the Ulster Senior League with a 2.30pm, Kick-off. Instonians who play in All Ireland League Division 3 have had a great start to their season and beat Division 2 side Malone two weeks ago and will be coming to Judges Road high on confidence. They will be hoping to lay down a marker for when the two teams meet later in the season in the AIL.
City of Derry Team V Dungannon: Davy Witherow, Stephen Duffy, Bob McKillop, Brian Prue, Tom Patton, Stephen Corr, Stephen Ferguson, Stephen Sims, Andrew Semple, Richard McCarter, Josh Lewis, Ryan Campbell, Richard Brady, Simon Logue, Peter Henderson. Replacements: Rodney Balfour, Richard Baird, William McCleery, Richard Peoples.
