Ballymoney 7 – 18 Inishowen
October 15th 2011
Inishowen captain Neil Gillespie had to make a number of changes from the team that beat City of Derry 41-8 last week due to injury’s and work commitments, with most of the changes coming in the backline a new look centre partnership saw David Black coming in off the wing to play at 12 and wing forward Gary McEleney start at 13 in place of Shaun Craig and Paul Cassidy respectively. Shaun fractured his ribs in the win against Derry, all at the club wish him a speedy recovery and Paul was caught late at work (could people please stop ordering concrete on a Saturday afternoon). Gregg Byron and Tony Diver returned to the team on the wings and utility man James McColgan moved from wing to fullback. In the forwards evergreen Philip McFadden slotted into the front row replacing Brian Harkin who had taken the Inishowen mini rugby players to a tag blitz in Letterkenny and Eamon Doherty joined Matt McCrossan in the second row while Neil Gillespie filled in at 6 in place of Gary McEleney. These changes meant that Inishowen travelled with only 15 players and no subs for what was expected to be our toughest match of the season so far.
Ballymoney won the coin toss and decided to kick off, Inishowen receiving the ball went on the attack from the start passing the ball through hands looking for gaps in the stout Ballymoney defence. Inishowen looked to use their set piece that has been very effective this season so far and kicked to the corners using both McCrossan and Cantwell successfully in the early lineouts. Philip McFadden throwing in at the lineout was surprised to learn he wasn’t the oldest player on the pitch and decided that he wanted to test himself against a front row with a combined age of over 150 years, with no scrum opportunity’s arising he took it upon him self to throw crooked at the lineout and give the ref no choice but to award the scrum. This Ballymoney pack was probably the biggest and strongest Inishowen has meet all year but what they lacked in terms youthfulness they more than made up for in experience, the change in Inishowen’s engine room made no difference to the way the pack scrummaged and they could once again use it as a platform to release the backline with go forward ball. Captain Neil Gillespie having not played backrow for over a season got nominated for turnip of the week by forgetting that he wasn’t in the second row and instead of keeping his head up was caught day dreaming as the Ballymoney number 8 and scrum half made a break down the blind side, luckily good cover defence saw the attack breakdown and the ball turned over.
Good ball carrying from number 8 Anthony Cantwell and flanker Colm Sweeney brought Inishowen close to scoring on a number of occasions but the ball resembled a bar of soap and the final pass didn’t make it to hand, Cantwell made one line break and passed to hooker John Kelly in support, Kelly about 7 metre out chipped through and chased as 4 tumbleweeds blew across the pitch and music played in the background the Ballymoney winger completed 2 laps of the pitch before jogging past Kelly to kick the ball out.
With Inishowen having most of the possession in the opening exchanges and pressurising their opponents a penalty was soon awarded which number 10 Mark Glasha slotted over to give the visitors a deserved 3-0 lead. From the resulting kick off good momentum saw the Inishowen pack push their way well into the Ballymoney half, the pack started to build up phases while the backline waited for an opportunity to take advantage of any gaps that appeared. A ruck was formed 10 metres in from the right touchline and with the Ballymoney defence lined up opposite their Inishowen counterparts an opportunity arose to attack the blindside, with little space good work from Seamus Hickey and Anthony Cantwell gave winger Gregg Byron a one on one against his opposite number and a good sidestep left the defender flat footed with Gregg an easy run in to score a well worked try. Mark Glasha converted and with the weather taking a turn for the worse Inishowen went into half time leading 10-0.
Inishowen started the second half in a similar fashion to the first half looking for gaps in attack and disrupting Ballymoney ball in defence, Inishowen using the choke tackle that the international team have become renowned for to good effect holding the Ballymoney attacker up and preventing them from releasing the ball, with good support for the defender Ballymoney had no chance of mauling and with the ball not being used the ref awarded the scrum to Inishowen. With heavy rain affecting ball handling, scrum half Seamus Hickey used his boot to pin Ballymoney back in their own half and with Ballymoney kicking to touch to release the pressure Inishowen were able to set up numerous mauls and drive their way through the defence. A scrappy lineout was won by Cantwell and cleaned up by McCrossan quick ball was spread out the backline to give Gary McEleney an easy run in to score the second try of the game wide on the left, the resulting conversion was missed to leave the score 15-0 in Inishowen’s favour. With the game by no means won Inishowen opted to kick for post when a penalty arose soon after to keep the score board ticking over. 18-0 to Inishowen.
The Inishowen pack started to feel the effects of such a physical game and with 5 minutes left on the clock were penalised, Ballymoney took the quick penalty and with the visitors not back 10 another penalty was awarded. With Inishowen desperate to keep a clean sheet and everybody tired they allowed Ballymoney to creep towards the 5 metre line, another penalty gave the big Ballymoney prop a chance to drive forward and a mix up in defence when they thought they had turned the ball over left a gap for the scrum half to nick in under the posts. With the last play of the game the try was converted to give Inishowen a 18-7 win, congratulations to all involved on a well deserved win.
Nominations for turnip of the week saw a record number of players put forward including Neil Gillespie, Mark Glasha, Tony Diver. Anthony Cantwell nominated himself for passing the ball when passing is for softies and not recommended by forwards, the last nomination was for a certain unnamed player who failed to notify anybody that he was unavailable until the evening before the game when he had to be contacted rather than make the effort himself. Mark Glasha was awarded simply because he was on the phone when he should have been defending himself during the kangaroo court on the back of the bus.
Training continues on Tuesdays and Thursdays and with 5 wins out of 5 anybody looking to play needs to make an effort to train.
