Toon Try Fest as Ophir Offer Little in Home Finale

CHAMPIONS

On Saturday, the JKC sponsored Ballymoney 1st XV were crowned League champions as they defeated Ophir in the final home game of the season.

Earlier in the week Ophir couldn’t field 15 players so conceded the double header thus leaving Ballymoney league winners before a ball was kicked. With Clelland and Hanna wanting a final game at home before the season end, offered Ophir the players needed to field, giving both an opportunity to field several Dalriada players, notably Thomas Hunter ,Denis Posternik and Jack Dowey.

The game kicked off in front of a huge home crowd and within several minutes, wing Gary Pattison opened the scoring, converted by Andrew Young. This was the start of the onslaught and by half time were leading 36-0 with further tries from Nathaniel Steele, Thomas Hunter, Adam Pollock, Gary Pattison and Mike Armstrong.

The second half was similar with tries galore .Michael Allan (2), Jordan Munnis, Thomas Hunter, David McKeeman, James Clelland and Jack Dowey all getting on the score sheet.

With the score at 81-0 the ref blew the whistle early and ended this one sided affair, giving the Toon the chance to celebrate their league win in front of the home support!

Coaches’ comments
Fair play to Ophir who made the journey down with only 12 players, but with a large crowd anticipated for the final home game, we felt it was important to play the game therefore we agreed to lend them the players needed to fulfil the fixture .It also gave us the opportunity to play a few guys from Dalriada and they certainly were very impressive!
We must give credit to all the players who have worked hard all season, we started back in June and they have trained hard .Thankfully all the hard work has paid off and we go back to Qualifying 2 at the first time of asking .It will be a further step up but we are confident we have the ability to do well and look forward to the challenge.
It was great to finish off our home campaign in front of such a large support and I hope they have enjoyed watching us this season and hope they return again next season. The players certainly appreciate the support and enjoy playing in front of them.
Our final league game of the season against Strabane has been rearranged for this Friday night to be played at Limavady RFC , kick off is 6.45 pm .