Friends Medallion Fall Short
Last Saturday saw Belfast High School take the short journey to Lisburn to face Friends School in the second round of the Danske Bank Medallion Shield.
Friends certainly went into this fixture as favourites but the High School had come out better after the Christmas break.
BHS dominated the set piece and with a much bigger pack had little problems with scrums, Friends Lineout didn’t function so had problems securing this set piece however Friends defence was good.
In open play they failed to support each other, a characteristic that hadn’t troubled them in the later stages of their preparation meaning they failed to convert the many scoring opportunities afforded to them, but in thier defence play worked hard together.
The larger High School pack soon was rewarded with a converted try however Friends soon came back with a converted penalty by James Maxwell.
Friends work at the breakdown was awarded by a number of Penalties that were not in range of the posts whereas BHS won two that were kicked making the halftime score 3 – 13 for the visitors.
A fairly technical half time talk saw Friends come out with vigour and improved set piece play.
This lead to them dominating the second half and the reward of a try by the Captain, Kirk McGrady, conversion missed, 8 – 13.
Friends continued their attack on the High Schools line resulting in most of the game being played in the High Schools half with them only making a few sorties into Friends half.
The home side crossed the High Schools line twice more only to have been deemed to have knocked on during the grounding and the second time held up over the line.
The High Schools scrumhalf and outhalf played a great game in defence as on three further occasions when Friends were encamped on their line the link between the two cleared the threat with great passing and kicking.
Friends lost two more try scoring opportunities when a ball carrier failed to notice a 3 on one overlap on the wing 15 metres from the High School line and failed to pass, he was well tackled by the High School winger, the second was a Friends player coming into the attack line and tried to take a ball meant for the supporting Fullback and knocking on in the process when there was no High School defence to stop the try.
With five minutes left on the clock and the home side only trailing by 5 points it looked as if a draw could have been on the cards but after some good forward pressure from the visiting side, Belfast High Schools impressive centre replacment made a break that the Friends covering defence failed to stop letting him score out wide, conversion missed making it a 10 point deference with only a couple of minutes remaining. The half finished with no further scores making the final score 8 – 18 for Belfast High School who progress to the third round.
It was a very entertaining match for the large crowd of home and away supporters, and a game that the result was never secure until the full time whistle. Praise must got to the two sides who performed so well and made for an exciting game
Friend now await to see their opposition in the Medallion Trophy competition and wish Belfast High School good luck in the next round of the Shield.
