City of Armagh Seconds 66 Ballynahinch Seconds 0

Saturday 6th April ​​Seconds win league convincingly.

In wonderful conditions Armagh Second xv had a very convincing win over a youthful Ballynahinch side, their nearest challengers in the Second XV League. Armagh immediately put the Hinch under pressure to score after Peter Lamb went over from a five metre rolling maul. Kyle Faloon added the extras with an excellent conversion. Things got worse for Ballynahinch when Daryl Morton back from a long term injury, barged over for the first of his 4 tries. Again Kyle Faloon converted. Ballynahinch had no answer to Armagh’s forward power and the front row of O’Hagan, Lamb and John Clarke were making their presence felt in the scrums. Josh Kennedy and Stephen Morton were winning great lineout ball and the back row of Ollie Millar, Daryl Morton and Barry Finn were outstanding. Indeed Finn has been injured for most of the season and his carrying and support play was fantastic to watch, scoring the fourth try of the game. More tries followed and at half time the score was 38-0 for Armagh.

A similar trend followed in the second half with Kyle Faloon getting on the scoreboard twice and his younger brother Glenn playing in only his third game of the season, coming off the bench to also add a bit of pace in the backline. Scrumhalf Trevor Girvan supplied great ball to his half back partner Harry Boyd and the centres Matty Reaney and John Faloon also added a try each. Misi Bogitini on the right wing didn’t get enough ball, but when he did, he contributed well throughout. Luke Crozier on the right wing, the Club’s leading try scorer did well also, but he couldn’t get on the score sheet this week. At full back, Kyle Faloon’s mercurial running caused Ballynahinch all sorts of trouble and having scored 2 tries and 8 conversions, he contributed 26 of Armagh’s 66 points.

Fair play to Ballynahinch as referee Trevor Bradfield offered to end the game early, but Ballynahinch played on gamely and finally Ollie Millar got a deserved score to keep his scoring run on track. For the record, Daryl Morton got 4 tries , Kyle Faloon 2, with one each for John Falloon, Ollie Millar, Barry Finn and Peter Lamb, 10 tries in total.

It is hard to believe that City of Armagh Seconds have gone unbeaten in the 2nd xv league and with one game to go they cannot be overtaken. So for the second year in a row, they did the double, winning the Second xv league and also the Conference League, only missing out on the final of the Towns’ cup. They provide great back up to the first xv and quite a number of players could slot in to help the First xv out. It is just a pity that the First xv could not emulate the Seconds in the AIL match.