City of Armagh 2nd XV 27 Carrickfergus 1st XV 34

Saturday 9th October 2011
Report by Richard Black

City of Armagh Second xv had an early kick off on Saturday against a strong Carrick side who are surprisingly struggling somewhat in the Conference League. With a strong lineup, Armagh made many mistakes throughout the match and couldn’t build on their recent performances. On paper the Armagh side looked strong with Harry Boyd at outhalf, Jonny Pollock at first centre and Richard Reaney at second centre. They also welcomed Josh Agnew back into Armagh colours with the youthful Adam Hegarty on the other wing and Daniel Reaney at full back. Could their forwards win sufficient ball was the question? Apart from the scrums, the lineout functioned well but too often there were not enough committed to the ruck and the big Carrick pack tended to somewhat out bulk their younger opponents.

Played in perfect conditions Carrick kicked off playing down the slope and it was even-stevens for the first quarter until the elusive Carrick number 10 slipped through a couple of missed tackles for the opening try which was unconverted. Armagh struck back with a great counter attack from Daniel Reaney from his own line. The link up play from Pollock and the backs was impressive and Josh King like every good flanker was on hand to sprint in from 22 yards to score midway out.
Harry Boyd’s conversion nudged Armagh into the lead 7-5 as the first quarter ticked over. Carrick immediately struck back when their speedy scrum half spotted nobody at home from a ruck ten minutes later and scored a fine individual converted try to put Carrick 7-12 up.

Disaster struck minutes later for Armagh when Josh again to the fore, tried to send his winger in but his pass was intercepted and the Carrick full back sprinted 75 metres to leave the halftime score 7 for Armagh and 17 for Carrick. Armagh then had to make a change when Adam Hegarty got a bang on his knee.

In the second half, Carrick upped the pressure at scrum time and the youthful front row of Dylan Poyntz, Jack Sleator and Philip Nicholl were penalised on many occasions for popping up but the referee needed to pay closer attention to Carrick’s scrummaging tactics. Things improved slightly when Kurtis Sherry came on for the injured Tom Johnson and Dylan Poyntz went into the second row with Stephen Morton coming on to allow Josh King to fill in for Adam Hegarty in the wing.

Armagh went further behind when the speedy left winger for Carrick went in for a try in the left corner. Minutes later and after a missed touch penalty and a knock on, Armagh went further behind with another Carrick converted try to stretch Carrick’s lead to 10-29. To their credit, Armagh could have surrendered completely but this youthful side never gave up and Kurtis Sherry in possibly his last game for a while, was on the end of some concerted effort by the forwards to dive over for a converted score. Minutes later an excellent break by the talented James Crummie reduced the margin to 5 points with Armagh making a dramatic comeback. It was not to be however as a clever chip ahead over the rush defence found nobody at home and Carrick sealed victory with virtually the last move of the game. In the last play of the game, Armagh got a losing bonus point with a Boyd penalty to leave the score Armagh 27 Carrick 34 All in all, a good game of rugby to watch but Armagh know themselves that they gave away too many penalties, missed too many tackles and played in the wrong areas of the pitch. However it should be a good learning curve for the young platers to play against grisly Championship teams.

This Saturday, City of Armagh Seconds face tough encounter at home against one of the strongest Conference League sides, Ballyclare. Kick off at the Palace Grounds is 2.30pm.