Clogher Valley 3rd XV fielded a mixed side of youth and experience on
Saturday to face Armagh 4th XV. Clogher Valley set their intentions down
early with strong scrummaging and ball carrying. The first try came on the
10 minute mark when CV forwards worked through four phases of tight ball
carrying in the centre of the park drawing Armagh’s defence in. Gaps began
to appear both left and right. Scrum Half Carruth spun the ball wide to the
right and the backs moved the ball well with Luke Irwin at second centre the
one to find the try making gap. Dylan Eakin at out-half kicked the first of
four excellent conversions.
Armagh were not well organised at the line-out and this left a fair number
of opportunities for CV forwards to clean up ball with Hicks at hooker
gathering lots of loose ball and running strongly. Paul Jennings was the man
to go over for the second try with ball being stolen at an Armagh lineout
and this time being carried by Liam McElroy, Chris Trimble and Simon Clarke
through multiple phases of tight play before being spun through quick hands
to the left wing where Paul worked hard to get across the line. Dylan Eakin
proceed to convert.
The mould was set for the rest of the first half. From the restart Armagh
had no answer to the CV forwards with strong ball carrying by Simon Clarke,
Jamie Herron and Chris Trimble taking play to within 5 metres of the Armagh
try line. The ball did not come out of a ruck and Armagh were awarded the
put in to the scrum. CV had been scrummaging well from the out set with Prop
Ryan McMaster leading the way, Clogher Valley were not going to give up this
opportunity easily. The Armagh scrum was driven quickly backwards and the
Armagh scrum half was under serious pressure coming away with the ball where
he was quickly wrapped up be CV man of the match Tim Moore (playing flanker)
who proceeded to rip the ball and dive across the line for his first try of
the day. Eakin converted.
The Armagh team talk at half time must have been a good one because they
improved the game play significantly in the second half. For the first 10
minutes from the kick off CV players 1 to 15 were called upon to defend and
all performed excellently. In particular Russell Smyton and replacement
player Dean Sharkey put in strong tackles giving Armagh no room to move.
The combination of number 8 Paul Eagleson and scrum half Lee Carruth had
been working well all day with Carruth making the calls and Eagleson
carrying ball. The 4th try came after one of these calls. A ruck was formed
and Carruth’s box kick from the back was chased by the eager and hard
working Tim Moore. He beat 2 Armagh players to the ball, picked up and ran
on to score under the posts. Eakin converted again.
Clogher Valley full back Andy Brady had been having an excellent game
dealing with all Armagh kicks with seeming ease and breaking the Armagh line
every time in counter attack but a knock meant a reshuffle for CV with Paul
Clarke coming on in the second row, Simon Clarke moving to flanker and Tim
Moore going to Full back.
The last quarter is where Clogher Valley began to tire. Armagh took
advantage by finding gaps in the backline and scoring 2 tries in quick
succession. Both were converted and the score came to 28 – 14. Clogher
Valley raised the game again in the final stages winning ball in there own
half and spinning it wide to the right through sure hands to winger George
Koszylowski who ran 40 meters to take Clogher Valleys 5th and final score.
Final score 33 – 14.
