Toon start season with away win at Hinch

Ballymoney 1st XV sponsored by JKC/Causeway Geotech kicked off their competitive season with a trip to Ballymacarn Park to face Ballynahinch 2nd XV in the Junior Cup. With a good pre-season completed, places were up for grabs as the season commences and coaches Andy Graham and Marty Irwin had a few difficult calls to make at selection in midweek.

Skipper Will Scott was unavailable due to work commitments so, Scott Gamble led the team for the first time as the squad hoped to cement their place in the starting team in the weeks to come.

The first half was an extremely tight affair with the Toon starting very strongly, and putting Hinch on the back foot, unfortunately Ballymoney had to empty the bench within the first half hour with the returning David McKeeman tweeking his calf muscle, and Debutant Logan McIntyre suffering a serious-looking knee injury, later followed by Jack Murdoch suffering a shoulder injury.

On the half hour mark, Hinch opened the scoring with their first trip into the Ballymoney 2, catch and drive lineout led to the Hinch pack crashing over and with extras added, the home side leading 7-0. Second half started well for the Toon when from a Hinch lineout inside their own 22, the ball was slapped back and intercepted by Phillip Beattie who popped inside to prop Adam Donnelly who crashed over from 3 yards; conversion missed, score reduced to 7-5. Hinch replied midway through the half with Ballymoney down to 14 with Andrew Gilmour in the sin bin for a high tackle, Hinch took advantage of the extra man to score out wide, conversion missed 12-5 to Hinch.

Ballymoney continued to work hard and continued to attack the home side in an extremely tight game, and as the Toon were camped inside the 22, the ref blew the whistle with a home player on the ground with a head injury. From the scrum on the restart, the Toon pack drove towards the line and after several pick and go drives, skipper Gamble smashed over and with the extras added, Money drew level 12-12.
With the visitors now in the ascendancy, a 50-22 kick from replacement centre Steele gave Ballymoney a lineout deep inside the opponents 22; this led to a catch and drive from 10 metres and hooker Beattie capped off a fine performance as he steered the maul over the line to give the Toon a deserved 17-12 lead as the game entered the final 5 minutes.

Ballynahinch threw everything at Ballymoney in the final 5 minutes, but the defence held firm and with the clock in the red, Ballymoney turned over the ball and smashed it off the pitch to win the closely fought battle.

Coach Marty Irwin was delighted with the result after the game, “I thought we were excellent, we started a lot quicker today than we have done in the pre-season games as we put into practice a lot of the things we have been working on in training. Our resilience today was very impressive today as we went for long stages without the ball, we didn’t panic, we trusted our defence and were very quick at turning our defence into attack. Our penalty count was pretty good, but we have to continue to improve this. A lot of fellas have put their hand up today which gives us some pretty difficult decisions to make regarding selection as the league starts this Saturday. One downside to the game was the injury to young Logan McIntyre who has made a seamless transition from U18 to Senior Rugby. Hopefully he won’t be out too long. We will have an intense week at training as we look forward to starting the league campaign away to City of Derry. Finally, thanks to those who made the trip to Hinch today, as always, your support is much appreciated.”