Strabane Rugby Club will be launching a mini rugby section on Saturday 26th October at the derry rd campus of strabane academy at 10.00am. Anyone, boy or girl, aged 6-11 will be able to participate. Ulster Rugby are sending down a member of the professional team and 3 coaches to help us out for the first few weeks. Please let us kn ow if you are interested so we can pre-register your kids for the course.
Strabane second XV hosted city of Derry 4s at Liskey Rd in minor league north and ran out comfortable 40-15 winners.
Strabane immediately went on the attack and after constant pressure, a scrum against the head led to a smooth flow along the back line and centre Steven Campbell showed his strength to barge over for a converted score. Skipper Alastair gore was next to score after the pack started to dominate the set piece, with numerous scrum and line out steals. A fine team break, through numerous sets of hands saw the new centre dot down between the posts.
Stung into action, Derry got a foothold in the game when their pacy fullback scored a fine individual try, but having spotted the dangerman, Strabane sensibly avoided kicking the ball to him whenever possible. Fullback, simon Mowbray wrapped up the scoring for the first half with another well worked score, which he converted with aplomb to leave it 19-5 at the break.
Strabane knew they were in a game and with the introduction of Darren Preston at loose head and Phil “Hightower” Sproule at lock, they came out with all guns blazing. young Preston introduced himself to the Derry second row with a ferocious tackle from the restart kick and big phil linked up with his second row partner lee Edgar to virtually choke the life out of any derry attack.
Some great attacking play from the pack saw prop jimmy Hamilton hauled down inches short of the line, but with the defence rushing right, number 8 johnny Robinson ran a crafty line to the left of the ruck and hooker bob dillon fed the try hungry monster the softest of tries. To be fair to Derry, they never lay down, and their dangerous 15 scored another breakaway try, but this was soon cancelled out by our own speedster, Chrissy Holden, who left a plethora of beaten defenders in his wake for a fine individual score. Skipper gore wrapped up the scoring, but the last talking point was Mowbray not scoring when fielding a scuffed clearance kick about 2 metres from the Derry line. Usually deadly within a sniff of the line, the experienced fullback was somehow stopped short and in the ensuing rush to finish with a score, the ball was knocked on and the ref blew the final whistle.
With another much changed side, the winning mentality has been ingrained into this squad, and the loss of half a team to injury and unavailability had no effect on the performance. New men have stepped in to plug any gaps and the team are already top of the league. There will be tougher tests ahead, but the season has started very well and the unbeaten league run now stretches back 18 months. How long can it last?
