Thirds beatenin Ards

City of Derry 3rds19

THE City of Derry Thirds travelled to Ards on Saturday for their first league game of the season, and were unlucky to come away with a defeat. Derry started brightly and got the first score when young Danny O’Conner finished off a fine team move in the first few minutes.

This was quickly followed by a brilliant pick and go by Jason McDermott at scrum half who beat three tacklers to run in from the half way line; he converted his own try to leave Derry 12-0 up after five minutes.

However slack defending let Ards back into the game as they picked up two scores before the end of the first half. Another converted Derry try through John Laverty left the half time score 19-14 in Derry’s favour.

Ards scored another quick converted try after half time to leave the score 21-19 to the home team and this was how it remained for most of the second half. Despite having two players sin-binned Derry were encamped in the Ards half but could not get the breakthrough to re-take the lead, as poor decision making and dubious referring frustrated the visitors and in the last minute Ards broke out to score another converted try to seal victory.

Despite the loss there was a lot of encouragement to be taken from the game. Youngsters Jason McDermott and Danny O’Connor, both playing out of position, had fine individual games, as did prop forward Simon Cairns. Paddy Owens and Eamonn O’Leary playing in their first competitive game for years both put in big hits in defence and caused Ards plenty of problems when carrying the ball forward. Next up for the Thirds is another away trip, this time to Banbridge.