Toon Men through to Towns Cup Semi Finals

Ballymoney 1st XV made the trip to Palace Grounds to face City of Armagh 2nd XV in the quarter final of the Bank of Ireland Town’s Cup.
In blustery conditions the game started and although the visitors started reasonably well, were behind after 5 minutes when a loose kick was gathered by the Armagh centre, who broke through several tackles to open the scoring below the posts and with conversion added Armagh led 7-0.
The toon hit back almost straight away when a penalty inside the Armagh 22 was driven over the line by David McKeeman, conversion missed 7-5.
On the half hour mark, with a home player sent to the bin, Ballymoney made the numerical advantage counter when from a catch and drive lineout, the ball was recycled to Scott Gamble who powered over the line and with Aaron Gervais adding the conversion, Ballymoney now led 12-7.
Just before the half time break, the ball was whipped out wide to Andrew Gilmour on the right wing who cut in to score below the post and with Gervais again adding the conversion, The Toonmen led 19-7 at the break.
With Ballymoney now playing into the wind second half Armagh narrowed the lead to 19-12 with a try five minutes into the half.
Ballymoney although playing good rugby in the most were on occasions making individual errors and should have been further ahead but midway through the half following another yellow card against Armagh, skipper Will Scott spotted a gap in the home defence to charge through from the 22 to score the fourth try and again Gervais added the conversion 26-12.
Armagh pushed back towards the end and Ballymoney too had James Bleakly yellow carded following several penalties against the Toon and the home side scored a converted try with three minutes left on the clock taking the score to 26-21.
A nerve-jangling conclusion to the game followed but Ballymoney defence held tight to win the game 26-21 and progress to the semi-final for the first time in over a decade.
“Probably not our greatest performance of the season but in Cup rugby getting the result is all that matters,” said manager Chris McIlmoyle after the game “Our preparations during the week were non-existent as we were unable to train at all due to the heavy snow. Thankfully after two physical encounters with Enniskillen we had no major injuries however being unable to train is not what we wanted. Armagh to their credit started strongly but we soon settled and at times played really good rugby but errors and penalties meant chances got away from us .Saying that though we are delighted to be in the hat for the semi-final , a massive achievement for the players and our coaching team of Andy and Marty deserve a lot of credit for their hard work and diligence .We look forward to the draw , like everyone we would favour a home draw but we have the belief we can beat whoever we get . We have a fantastic squad of players who work very hard and a very strong 2nd XV too who had a very convincing win at Queens in the Crawford Cup. Big support again today, it's great to see and hear the support from the touchline cheering the guys on. We have a well-deserved rest week next week before we welcome Portadown to Kilraughts Road on 3rd Feb as we return to league duties as we aim to keep pushing to finish in as high a position as we possibly can.”