Toon lose out away at Academy

Ballymoney Lose Bruising Battle away at Academy
On Saturday, the JKC sponsored Ballymoney 1st XV made the trip to Mallusk to face a tricky away tie to Academy .A heavy nights rain meant a late pitch inspection was necessary, delaying Ballymoney’s journey to Rough fort, however the pitch was declared playable and the game was good to go.
Skipper John McFetridge returned at no 6, with Andrew Stevenson taking his place on the bench .With Rory Strang unavailable, the backs reshuffled with Irwin moving to 10, Cleland going to 12 and Young moving to fullback .Thomas Hunter returned from injury and Gary Pattison made his first league appearance of the season, replacing the injured Aaron Brown.
Ballymoney kicked off with the wind at their back and immediately Academy went on the attack, recycling the ball well in tricky conditions .After several phases, the ref penalised Ballymoney at the ruck .Academy opted to kick for goal but their attempt went just wide of the posts.
Ballymoney launched their first attack from a scrum when McFetridge went blind and the ball was recycled to Irwin who placed the ball over the home defence deep in their 22 .From the line out the ball was moved out to Ramage who ran a hard line but unfortunately the ball was spilled, giving Academy scrum advantage. This was followed by another driving maul which again was turned over when an away score looked on the cards. The blowy wet conditions was making handling difficult for both teams and the game was strewn with handling errors on both sides, however the Toon continued to press, and with Academy back rower going off his feet at a ruck deep inside the 22, a penalty looked on the cards however the ref deemed Allan used excessive use of the feet to clear him from the ruck, leaving Academy with the penalty and the chance to clear their lines.
Ballymoney continued to press deep in the Academy half but a combination of errors and a resolute home defence kept the attack at bay .Midway through the half an injury to McFetridge ended his game and Stevenson replaced him .
A breakaway attack from Academy put the toon on the back foot deep in their own 22 and as the ball was moved to the corner, Ramage made a try saving tackle holding the Academy attacker up .However from the resulting scrum, the Academy pack drove Money off the ball right to the try line, with the scrumhalf scoring .Conversion missed, Academy 5-0 up.
Ballymoney continued to press and received a penalty deep in the 22,Cleland opted to go for the corner but unfortunately from the lineout the ball went in not straight and the ref blew for half time .
The second half saw Academy use the strong wind at their back now to peg Ballymoney back at every opportunity, meaning the Toon had to attack from deep. Five minutes in, a penalty gave the Academy kicker the opportunity to stretch the lead using the strong wind on his back, increasing the score to 8-0.
It seemed that it wasn’t going to be Ballymoney’s day when another penalty increased the score to 11-0.
Academy defended like their lives depended on it although they did cause the Toon a lot of problems in the scrum.
Ballymoney threw everything at the home side for the remainder of the game but was to no avail and Academy took the points with an 11-0 win.
After the game Jonny Hanna was naturally disappointed to lose the game but admitted the conditions made it difficult.
We always knew coming here would be a big test and it certainly was, although we had more possession we failed to take advantage of that, even though we played well enough we weren’t clinical enough and fair play to Academy they took their chances and scored so we have no complaints.
We need to bounce back from this defeat and next up is an away trip to Limavady, where we really do need to eliminate the errors from our game.
Another low point today was the injury to our captain early in the game but hopefully we’ll get him back to fitness sooner rather than later as we enter a crucial part of the season with fixtures coming thick and fast. In the meantime a big push will be required on the training field this week to right the wrongs