JKC / Causeway Geotech–sponsored Ballymoney 1st XV welcomed Lurgan to Kilraughts Road on Saturday, hoping to put a difficult start to the season behind them and return to winning ways.

James Currie returned to the front row alongside Philip Beattie and Scott Agnew. Andrew Stevenson partnered Daniel Ramage in the second row, with Marcel Ngyutin and Will Scott joining skipper David Brown in the back row. James Wright started at scrum-half, with Paddy Carson at fly-half. The centres were Matthew Bell and Ross Fallows, while the back three consisted of Isaac Moore, Stephen McCamphill, and Tyler McNeill. Andy Jackson, George McAuley, and Andy Young provided cover from the bench.

Before kick-off, a minute’s silence was held in memory of John McElderry, a long-standing club sponsor, who sadly passed away on Friday.

Playing towards the clubhouse, Ballymoney started brightly. Within two minutes they were ahead — a break down the left by Ross Fallows took play right to the line before Marcel Ngyutin gathered the loose ball and touched down in the corner. 5–0 Ballymoney.

Unfortunately, that proved to be Fallows’ last involvement as he suffered an ankle injury and was replaced by Andy Young.

On ten minutes, Ballymoney extended their lead. An attempted chip by Lurgan was gathered by Matthew Bell, who made the break and offloaded to David Brown. The skipper carried deep into the Lurgan 22 before passing to the supporting Philip Beattie, who crossed the line. Paddy Carson added the extras to make it 12–0.

Lurgan responded on 20 minutes. Following a scrum five metres out, Ballymoney were penalised, and the Lurgan fly-half tapped quickly to dive over in the corner. The conversion was successful, narrowing the gap to 12–7.

Ballymoney hit back on the half-hour mark with a third try. From an attack out wide, scrum-half James Wright spotted a gap and darted through to score beneath the posts. Carson converted again to stretch the lead to 19–7.

The Toon pressed hard for a fourth try as half-time approached, camping deep inside the Lurgan 22. However, a wide pass was intercepted by the Lurgan winger, who sprinted the length of the field to score against the run of play. The conversion cut the deficit to 19–14 at the break.

Ballymoney knew the importance of striking first after the restart, and they did just that. Philip Beattie powered through two defenders to crash over for his second try of the afternoon. Carson again converted to extend the lead to 26–14.

Midway through the half, a sequence of scrums inside their own 22 saw Ballymoney penalised repeatedly. James Currie was shown a yellow card, and Lurgan took full advantage, opting for another scrum and eventually crashing over to make it 26–21.

With six minutes remaining, the Lurgan prop was shown a red card following an incident at a scrum outside his own 10-metre line. Despite being a man down, Lurgan refused to concede defeat. After a mix-up in a Ballymoney lineout, they regained possession and launched one final attack.

In the last play of the game, Lurgan broke through the tiring Toon defence to score under the posts. The conversion that followed sealed a dramatic comeback victory for the visitors — 28–26 to Lurgan.

“Absolutely gutted to lose this game,” said a dejected captain David Brown after the match. “I felt we dominated large parts of the game and should have been out of sight at half-time, but we gifted them a try when we were on the verge of scoring ourselves.

It’s a hard one to swallow, but we need to be more accurate at times and reduce our penalty count. It’s been a difficult season so far, but we’ll continue to work hard to turn this around. Thanks to all the supporters who came out today — it means a lot.

We travel to Dromore next week, so we’ll need a big week in training to prepare. We’ll put today’s disappointment behind us and move on to the next challenge.”