City of Derry 15 – 12 Inishowen
City of Derry dent Inishowen’s title hopes
January 21st 2012
On Saturday the men from Inishowen were once again on the road in the league this time travelling the short distance to play neighbours City of Derry fourth XV. The sides previous meeting in the league was at the start of October, on that occasion Derry travelled with 11 players with a large squad to pick from Inishowen generously gave them 4 players and a 5 player at half time. To repay the compliment Derry fielded an unrecognisable team thanks to the third team having their game called off.
Inishowens plans were disrupted with numerous injuries affecting the backline, the entire midfield of 10 Mark Glasha, 12 Maurice Harkin and 13 Paul Cassidy were unavailable. Mick “Dundee” Harkin came into the out half position for his first game in over a year with David Cassidy filling in at inside centre and Gary McEleney once again showing his versatility when asked to play out of position at outside centre.
The visitors won the toss and played into the wind, receiving the kick they started brightly with powerful carries from forwards James Carr, Anthony Cantwell and Neil Gillespie. An infringement gave Inishowen a scrum inside their own half, Derry got a drive forward causing the scrum to wheel and disruption from the Derry scrum half went unnoticed. The home side turned over possession and aided by soft tackling scored a try under the posts. The following conversion leaving the scores at 7-0.
Inishowen regrouped under the posts knowing they had to hit straight back but within minutes of the restart were dealt another blow when vice captain Colm Sweeney went off injured. Colm spent the night in hospital for his troubles, everyone in the club wish him a speedy and full recovery
With the players on the pitch unaware of the severity of Colm’s injury play continued with Inishowen down to 14 men temporally. The visitors marched up the pitch and Anthony Cantwell crashed over for a well taken try, the referee was the only person not to see the ball being grounded and gave a scrum 5. The forwards set up a number of phases before they were awarded a penalty, a pre-planned move was called and full back Conor Mulkearns received the ball and scored under the posts. The missed conversion shortened the gap on the scoreboard to 7-5.
From the restart Inishowen attacked again and within minutes David Cassidy showed great strength to cross the try line taking two defenders with him, another clear try deemed held up by the ref. Another penalty gave Inishowen the chance to attack this time Mulkearns was stopped just short of the line, the ball was recycled and soon after Cantwell went over again this time the try awarded. Number 8 James Carr stepped up and kicked the conversion giving Inish a 12-7 advantage.
With Colm unable to return to the field a reshuffle in the pack saw Gillespie move to 7 and Eamon Bushman go to second row. A youthful looking Seamus Stamp joined the forwards going in at hooker for the first time since playing youths rugby and had a good game sticking on some good tackles and supporting the pack in the loose. Derry pulled a score back after more soft tackling let them touch down in the corner, the missed conversion tied the scores at 12-12 at halftime.
Playing into the wind in the second half it was decided to play a tight game using the pack to drive the ball up the field, the forwards battled and battered for the entire second half with Derry rarely in possession. Inish pushing for a winner made good ground though Mick Dundee and the forwards. Numerous infringements in the ruck by Derry went unpunished before Cantwell scored his third try of the day unbelievably the ref once again favoured the home side and called play back for a phantom knock on. Another scoring chance was called back soon after with the visitors adjudged to have knocked on after a few scrappy exchanges when it was in fact the home side who knocked on.
Derry were awarded a penalty when the ref felt Inishowen were talking too much, possibly the first penalty given for organising a defensive line. The resulting kick gave Derry an undeserved 15-12 lead.
Inishowen battled hard for the remainder of the game but with every decision now going against them couldn’t find the much needed score. The final score saw Inishowen suffer only their second league defeat of the season against a team mainly made up of players playing three divisions higher. With three try’s disallowed and a fourth stopped in the action Inish felt this is a game they should have won and didn’t because of matters out of their hands, with the league battle looking like its going to go to the wire and still a four horse race advantage has been handed to Armoy, Uuc and Strabane. With 3 of the 4 teams still to meet each other the league is far from over but if this game proved to be fateful due to refereeing decisions and players from a higher league it would be a bitter pill to swallow.
Training continues on Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 as we look to get our season back on track, next week Inishowen host Letterkenny in the Butler Shield with league action resuming the week after away to UUC.
Inishowen U13’s close to defeating the league leaders.
January 18th 2012
Inishowen played Omagh RFC at home on Saturday morning with all three age groups in action. The U13’s have developed and improved immensely over the last few weeks and it has shown in their performances. Omagh decided to play with the wind in the first half and kicked off. Inishowen shown their intent by good ball carrying from Liam Barr and Daniel Marzan to bring Omagh back into their 22. With rucking improved scrum half Conor Quigley was receiving quick, clean ball and able to release the fast Chritopher Doherty and Tiernan Devine into space. The pressure result in two tries being scored in the first half, the first by Dylan Doherty and the second by Captain Liam Barr. The score at half time, 10 – 5 to Inishowen. In the second half Inishowen lost players to the cold weather conditions and injury but the replacements played extremely well. Tristan Clarke and Jason Doherty steadied up the pack while Gregg Doherty and Danny McCarron attacked and tackled in the backline. In the final 5 minutes, Liam Barr went on the charge up the side line and burst through three tackles to make it to the line. Omagh stepped it up a gear to score a great individual try in the last minute resulting in a draw. Final score 15 – 15. The weather and pitch conditions on Saturday were not great but both teams deserve credit for the performance and effort shown.
Team: Ruaidhri McCarron, Thomas Cavanagh, Tiernan Devine, Christopher Doherty, Oisin McGonagle, Sean Murray, Conor Quigley, Padraig McCarron, Ciaran McEleney, Dylan Doherty, Adam Conlon, Daniel Marzan, Niall Kelly, Shay Bonner, Liam Barr, Tristan Clarke, Adam Doherty, Danny McCarron and Gregg Doherty.
