Cooke snatch a late draw against Larne 2’s.by Stephen Johnston
Saturday 5th October saw Larne 2nds travel to Cooke in fairly contested 18-18 draw.
Both sides opened the game with early penalty chances with Cooke converting 1 of 2 chances to take a 3-0 lead and Larne missing 2 chances to level or lead the scoring.
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Larne’s front row of Derek Lough, Ryan McAllister and Declan McCann combined well to force a strong contested, scrumming game against the home side.
A kick through from out-half McBride saw a try opportunity for Larne, but foul play resulted in the sin binning of Cooke’s number 15. With 14 men on the pitch for Cooke, wide ball out to Jordan Burns saw him put pace on the ball, before offloading inside for centre partner Hall to score from the halfway mark into the corner. Larne taking the lead 3-5.
Cooke from the restart, kicked deep into Larne’s half and regained the ball and slotted over a penalty to regain the lead.
Larne showed their determination with some hard tackling of Andrew Ferguson and the ever present Gareth Jamison, which paid off when Aaron Carter converted a penalty to nudge the score 3-8.
Ferguson went from hero to villain when he received a yellow card for the travelling side and Cooke duly acknowledging 3 more points for a half time score of 6-8.
Determined running of Larne’s back 3 combination of Carter, Kelso and Blair showed they were a force to be reckoned with, gaining vital advantage into Cooke’s half.
McBride was sent to the sin bin and from the penalty into the corner, Cooke rumbled a maul for their prop to go over for a 11-8 lead.
Larne returned the favour when a rumbling maul of their own created havoc, only Steven McDowell was brought down short of the line.
A touchline run from winger Kelso looked certain to be in, but also brought up short. The returning McBride, making up for his sin binning with a Larne penalty through the hard work shown by Larne.
The last 10 mins of the game were all to play for when both teams were tied. Larne looked victorious though a swooping left to right team score for Hall’s second try of the game and converted himself for a 11-18 lead. Although Larne held out with some fantastic try line defence, the final play of the game was resulted in a sniping try by the Cooke scrum half. The conversion snatching the draw 18-18.
Larne: D. Lough (c), R. McAllister, D, McCann, S. McDowell, A. Ferguson, L. Cameron, G. Jamison, S. McWhirter, B. Garrett, A. McBride, N. Kelso, J. Hall, J. Burns, B. Blair, A. Carter
