BRFC 3rd XV winning streak ends
On Saturday the 3rd XV hosted Ballymena RFC 3rd XV in the revised Ulster Rugby Provincial North League on a very windy and cold afternoon at the Kilraughts Road, writes Uel McDowell.
From the kick-off the Toon men knew the strong wind was going to have an influencing factor on the game. The early encounters centred around the midfield with both teams driving forward at every opportunity with the forwards, Sam Bartlet, William Parkhil, Aaron Johnson and captain Neil Campbell driving hard into the core of the Ballymena defence. The Ballymena outhalf, Steve Shaw, used his vast AIL experience wisely and kept the Toon men on their toes with his jinky runs and clever kicking. It was from one of these breaks that Ballymena found the gap in the Ballymoney defence to run in behind the posts to open the scoring. Steve Shaw converted giving the Braidmen 0-7 lead.
The Toon responded immediately, when Gavin Finney made ground and drew the Ballymena defence. A nice pass out to Mike McAleese saw the centre break two tackles on the half-way line and run in between the posts for an excellent score to reduce the deficit to 5-7. However, Gavin Finney missed the conversion.
Kicking for touch was proving difficult for both teams, as was the line-out throw ins, but a masterful line-out display by second row Johnathan Waide and throw ins by Aaron Johnson ensured that the Toon won the majority of line-out battles. The score at half-time was 5-7 to Ballymena.
The second half resumed with the Toon putting pressure on Ballymena and had them encamped in their half with strong running from the Ballymoney centres Ruari Hawthorne and Ronan Diericks and with this pressure a score was on the cards. However, as Ruari looked to score, the ball was knocked from his hand and Ballymena counterattacked and finding space out wide they broke through the resolute Toon defence to score another try, converted by Shaw, 5-14 to Ballymena.
The Ballymoney lads kept plugging away and when Ronan Diericks put in a superb tackle on the Ballymena winger, he broke his ankle and the team was re-shuffled. Minutes later captain, Neil Campbell had to leave the field and was replaced by Jimmy Rambo Nevin.
Eventually, the Toon got a score when some sterling work in the loose by Jimmy Nevin and Harry Orr put big Sam over the Ballymena whitewash which was converted by Ruari to reduce the scoreline by two points.
Some ill discipline in the Ballymena ranks saw the Toon miss 3 reasonably kickable penaltys, but the wind was favourable to the Braidmen. In the dying minutes a loose ball was hacked through the Ballymoney backline and the speedy Ballymena winger made certain of the score between the posts which Shaw again converted to leave the final score 12-21 to the visitors.
Captain Neil Campbell commented “ We are disappointed to lose our winning streak today, but the lads played very well in a very hard match. We all wish Ronan a speedy recovery from his injury. Now we have Ballynahinch 4ths here on Saturday in the Foster Cup and are looking forward to another tough encounter”