Bonus point in Monaghan

Toon earn Bonus point away in Monaghan

On Saturday, The JKC sponsored Ballymoney 1st XV made the long trip south where they faced Monaghan.With a few players unavailable to travel, coaches Hanna & Clelland reshuffled the team with Matthew Blair moving to second row, Aaron Brown moving to centre with Gary Pattison returning to the wing. Under 18 player Graham Donnelly made his first start at wing forward with Adam Hewitt and Fellow U18 Daniel Brennan the replacements.
The game kicked off in glorious Spring conditions and the wide flat pitch looked to favour the visitors style of play however it was the home team who took the lead when a penalty in the Ballymoney half was converted by the home fly half .
This sparked the visitors into action and following several waves of attack by the Ballymoney forwards, the referee penalised the home team inside their 22 .with the quick thinking Ian Moxen tapped and drove over the line out wide to open the scoring.
Straight from the restart the forward dominance continued and Matthew Blair, enjoying his run out in the engine room, picked and muscled his way over the line to double the scoring.
Now firmly in the driving seat and controlling all the play ,try no 3 wasn’t long in coming and following a good drive from debutant Donnelly, the ball was shifted out to Pattison who showed his opponent a clean pair of heels to score beneath the posts ,with Clelland converting ,score 17-3 to the Toon.

Sloppy defence from Ballymoney who were guilty of not defending the pillars allowed Monaghan to get their first try when their no 8 drove over to score which was excellently converted from out wide narrowed the deficit back to 7 points.
Ballymoney realised they would need to up their game again and did so when centre Aaron Brown crossed the line in the corner after sustained forward pressure. This score secured the bonus point, leaving the half time score 22-10 in favour of Ballymoney.
The second half kicked off and before long Monaghan were back in the game, more sloppy defence from Money gifted Monaghan their second score and following the conversion, the score was uncomfortably close at 22-17.
This comeback was short-lived however and with the pack dominant and Clelland attacking from deep at every opportunity another Toon try was inevitable and it was captain Mcfetridge driving from deep in the opponents 22 who crossed the whitewash and following the conversion ,the score was now 29-17.
Hewitt & Brennan came on in place of Blair and McFetridge with 30 minutes left on the clock as Ballymoney closed the game up with Monaghan out on their feet .Two further converted tries from Pattison before the end left the final score 43-17 in favour of Ballymoney and five more valuable points in their race to finish top of the league.
Although unhappy with the manner of the two soft scores, coaches Hanna & Clelland with the overall performance and manner of the win.
“We had to make a few changes coming here with a few of our regulars unavailable and a lot of other teams have come up short here as it’s a tricky place to come especially after a long bus trip however we came away with full points so can’t ask for much more .Donnelly had a great game at 6 and is certainly one to watch for the future and young Daniel Brennan also played very well when he came on ,great to see youth coming through .My fellow coach Jamesy Clelland was man of the match today as his reading of the game and ability to attack from deep was top notch !” said Hanna.
Next week we travel to bottom team Ophir as we look to stretch our lead at the top in this re-arranged fixture which was postponed earlier in the season with kick off at an earlier time of 1pm.