A sunny autumn afternoon at Deramore Park was the venue for the Perennials to entertain our City of Culture tourists from Derry. With John Black escaping a ban following his recent sending off, his punishment was he had to play the full match. He survived.
The weather in the north west had an impact on the numbers travelling from the maiden city, but after some begging, stealing and borrowing, two strong teams took the field and entertained the crowd to some very skilfull running rugby. In fact it was more entertaining that the previous days Ulster v Scarlets match.
Derry took an early lead, but a great break by Neil McConkey set up Michael McAlister to run in from the half-way line for the equaliser. Shortly afterwards, a two man overlap was wasted when the same Mr McAlister threw his pass into the second row of the stand. Mark Goldsbrough stole the resulting Derry line out and Don Thompson charged in from 40 metres to give the Perennials a 2 tries to 1 lead at the end of the first session.
The second period got off to a great start for the Perennials, as “John Bacon” sliced through, to feed Joel Callaghan for another try, followed by our captain Peter Sandford crossing to extend the lead. Davy Wilson finished the second period with a try in the corner after side stepping about six imaginary defenders, to give the Perennials a commanding 5 tries to 1 lead.
For the final third Maurice Field switched teams and borrowed a muddy Perennial shirt. Concerns was raised by our captain, as whilst guesting at full back for Derry for the first two sessions, his clean knees were proof of his commitment to the tackle.
Don Thompson and Marcus Cummings stretched the Perennials lead further before Austin Blackburn, guesting for Derry, scored to leave the score 7 – 2 to the Perennials. Both teams then exchanged tries through Joel Callaghan and Rab Irwin, who was also guesting for Derry. Then some wonderful running from Derry involving Richard McKee saw them score from their own line, to reduce the score to 8 tries to 4. Two more Perennials tries thanks to Gary Treanor and Michael McAlister, either side of an Emlyn Williamson try for Derry, left the final score 10-5 to the Perennials.
A big thank you to Davy Armstrong for refereeing the whole game, in front of 32 knowledgeable assessors and to Bernie McGrath for the first class post match meal and musical entertainment.
Also a big thank you to all the guys who turned up at late notice, complete with hangovers, to booster the playing numbers.
