Millar McCall Wylie Junior Cup Round 1, Bangor 1XV v Limavady 1XV
Uprichard Park, Bangor, 29th September 2012
Limavady continued their disappointing start to the season with a first round exit at the hands of Bangor in the Millar McCall Wylie Junior Cup. The Roesider’s started brightly, Kiwi outhalf missed an early penalty attempt but redeemed himself soon after by slotting home from close range.
Bangor came back strongly and soon got on the score board, when Jason Morgan was able to pick up from the back of a scrum and seemingly waltzed through the Limavady defence to go in under the posts. The North Down men kept turning the screw and stole a Limavady lineout again finding it far to easy to get through the defensive line, this time Darren Lyttle scoring.
Minutes after the restart from a lineout in a similar position, Bangor again got control of the ball, and impressive mauling from the forwards led to Mike Aspley going over from close range.
The all blacks changed tactics from kickoff, and went long with the kick. The ball was caught and popped to Davy Charles who ran from his own 22 with a mesmerising run and touched down under the posts with Bangor’s fourth try in 10 minutes. To the astonishment of both set of fans, the resulting conversion was missed when a decision was made to rush a drop goal attempt.
Thankfully Limavady were able to get one more opportunity before halftime. In a solo effort winger Steven Kilburn, put pressure on Bangor’s defence and caught the full back with tap tackle. The ball was dropped and Kilburn hacked through and outpaced 3 men to touch down in the corner. The resulting kick was missed. HT 22-8
Limavady started the second half much like the first and controlled most of the first 25 minutes. Centre pairing Hunter and Hull came close with penetrating runs but weren’t able to make it count.
Bangor were able to turn up the tempo, and a dominant scrum in the away sides 22 let substitute Ryan Law run around a tired defence and scored under the posts. Morgan converted and the referee decided that time was up, meaning Bangor go through to the second round. FT 29-8
It has been a difficult start for the Rosiders and they will be hoping they can get their season up and running next week at the John Hunter Memorial Grounds when they entertain Carrickfergus 1XV in the Kukri Qualifying Section game.
Junior League Section 4, Limavady 2XV v Carrickfergus 3XV
John Hunter Memorial Ground, Limavady, 29th September 2012
CLICK HERE for the superb action images from this game
Limavady 2’s entertained a very strong Carrick 3rds in the league at the John Hunter Memorial Grounds on Saturday and despite their best endeavours came off second best losing 10-3.
Losing some 7 players to the 1st xv didn’t help preparations for the game and this showed up with little cohesion being demonstrated in the course of the game by the home side. Carrickfergus bossed the breakdown throughout the game giving little opportunity for the Limavady backline to display their undoubtedly superior quality and were worthy winners at the end of the game.
In a dour first half the scores were level at 3-3 after Mullan kicked a fine penalty to wipe out an earlier one from the Carrick.
The second half was much better with Carrick dominating the early exchanges and their pressure was rewarded with a score under the posts which was converted to give them a 10-3 lead. Limavady stormed back and despite some strong runs from Alan Kilburn and Adam Campbell setting up good field positions nothing came of these as the well organised Carrick defence held strong,
This should be a learning lesson to the Limavady side that the ball never gets tired and too often the decision on penalties was to kick the ball to touch while moving it much quicker across the backline could have proved a better option. FT 3-10
