Coming from an excellent corporate lunch sponsored by Stevenson-Reid Plumbing Supplies hosted by Mr.Billy Stevenson,a large crowd were treated to an afternoon of tremendous end-to-end open running rugby when Donegal visited ‘Fortress Neillsbrook’ ! Randalstown with a reformed front row allowing John Adair back from injury and Paul Laverty, standing in for an injured John O’Kane, moving to scrum-half from out-half quickly settled to attack from the start. With only a few minutes gone good possession was swiftly fed along a free running back line to let Willie Fleck sprint in for the opening score – Daryl McGarry put over an excellent conversion from five metres in from touch.Donegal came back strongly and from a scrum on the ‘Town 22 sent their centre through to score under the posts and level the scores with only ten minutes gone.
This pattern continued end to end until taking the ball at speed Ryan Mcgarry crossed over in the corner 12-7. From the restart Donegal were awarded a penalty and brought the score to 12-10. Again ‘Town went hunting and, following good work by the pack recycling the phases, centre Blayne McGarry penetrated the Donegal defence to move the scoreboard to 17-10. Almost immediately Donegal bounced back and with a couple of poor tackles their centre burst through to score and with the conversion the sides were level again at 17-17.The last few minutes of the half were evenly contested and half-time brought a welcome relief to players and spectators alike. Coach Stevenson’s pep talk during the interval was obviously on the mark as from the start of the second period Randalstown were quickly shutting down the Donegal scrum-half who had been their leading light. The old expression of ‘a game of two halfs’ was accurate in this match as ‘Town dominated the second period and treated the crowd to some wizardry from their backs coupled with fire and determination from a hard working pack. Under pressure Donegal gave away penalties which Daryl McGarry kicked to open a six point lead. From a scrambled high kick by Donegal out of defence,Ryan McGarry took clean possession and took off on a beautiful mazy run to draw the Donegal defence before unloading to supporting brother Blayne who finished the score – conversion by brother Daryl ! 30-17 Still Randalstown pressed and after a superb drive from a line-out,Captain Foster drove over and again Daryl was on the mark. 37-17 A dispirited drop kick restart went straight to Blayne Mcgarry and, before the Donegal forwards had even crossed the half-way line,Mcgarry had sprinted over the try line for the final score leaving a well deserved 42-17 victory to ‘Town. A powerful,controlled pack performance laid the foundation for clean possession to showcase the talented ‘Town backs in full cry with the McGarry bothers working in perfect harmony – even a Donegal coach said ‘it was against us but it was beautiful to watch’.
