Enniskillen Seconds sought to continue the recent improvement to their season on Saturday when
hosting Ballyclare.
Following a late cry-off Tim Finlay stepped into the breach and acquitted himself well, and thanks
must go to him for doing so at short notice.
The visitors had, as always, useful backs and early on they tested the home defence.
‘Skins set pieces were again solid and gradually they started to gain a foothold in the
visitors half, and had the first chance to add points but missed a penalty. The
pressure was kept on, and a good scissors move between Keith Hurst and Paul Burns
resulted in a second kickable penalty, but the alert Kyle Johnston took it quickly,
sending Ross Finlay over for a fine try.
‘Skins forwards were getting a measure of control due to good close work by Gareth Beatty, Neil
Dickson and the others and further tries were scored by Johnston and Ally Duncan to leave the halftime
score 17 – 0.
Unfortunately for ‘Skins Dickson retired at half-time with injury and as a result the second half
became a struggle with Ballyclare trying to make the one man advantage count by moving the ball
wide at every opportunity, and after twenty minutes they scored an unconverted try and followed
this five minutes later with a second to reduce the score to 17 – 10.
‘Skins responded well and after a shrewd kick to the corner by
skipper Daniel Allister, he himself squeezed over in the corner
to extend the lead, but Ballyclare bounced straight back,
scoring a good try wide on the right, which was converted to
cut the lead to just five points at 22 – 17.
The question was could they score again, but ‘Skins gave their answer when following the restart
the Ballyclare receiver was engulfed in a sea of maroon. From the following play fine interpassing
between backs and forwards resulted in Tim Finlay scoring between the posts to leave the final
score 27 – 17.
This was a well-deserved win in a fine game played with good spirit. If ‘Skins can play with total
commitment, control and carry out their gameplan then they will be competitive against any
opposition.
