TRY TIME AS TOON SHINE IN THE SUN

TRY TIME AS TOON SHINE IN THE SUN

On a glorious early October afternoon, the JKC sponsored Ballymoney 1st XV entertained Letterkenny at Kilraughts Road. With the home team looking to build on their 100% start to the league campaign, they welcomed Adam Pollock into the back row for the missing Michael Allan, Skipper John McFetridge also returned for David McKeeman, and with Kenny McAneaney also unavailable, Matthew Blair stepped up from the bench with Danny McCord taking his place with Calum McDonald joining him on the bench.
Ballymoney took the lead in the first few minutes, with Neal Mulholland stealing the ball from a Letterkenny lineout and following fast hands out the backs, Thomas Knight crossed the whitewash to open the scoring. The second try followed soon with Nathaniel Steele continuing his fine try scoring form, capitalizing on a steal in midfield.
Following the restart, winger Gary Pattison took a tremendous catch from scrum half Steele’s clearance kick and after several phases, Andy Young joined in the try scoring, followed by the conversion.
The bonus point was secured soon afterwards when following a Matthew Steele quick tap & go, James Bleakley powered over for his first try of the season.
Scrum half Steele added a fifth on 25 minutes and further tries were added by powerhouse Matty Blair [2] and Thomas Knight leaving the half time score 46-0.
The sizeable home support were clearly enjoying the try fest and they didn’t have to wait too long into the second half before Nathaniel Steele added his second of the game .Gary Pattison scored the try of the game when he intercepted a pass in his own 22 and galloped the entire length of the pitch to score his first of the season.
Following tries from McCollum, Linton and Young the referee decided the beleaguered visitors had had enough and blew the game up 20 minutes early with the final score 77-0.
With 4 bonus point wins out of 4, coach Jonny Hanna was clearly delighted.” Today we started with a very high intensity and literally blew Letterkenny away, our set pieces worked well and our handling was excellent and we were clinical from start to finish.
Next week we face a much tougher test away to Lurgan but todays result will help build the confidence in our young team. Matthew Blair was man of the match today and with the good performances over the past few weeks ,it leaves me with a welcome selection dilemma !We will enjoy our win today but we must continue with the hard work at training this week .”