Academy victory over Coleraine in Schools’ Cup

A BIG crowd was in attendance at Coleraine for this Northern Bank Schools’ Cup encounter and despite a week of persistent rain, the pitch was somewhat heavy underfoot though the conditions overhead were perfect.
By The Newsroom
Published 15th Feb 2012, 14:36 BST

Ballymena had the better of both territory and possession in the early exchanges and opened the scoring after five minutes when Darren Geddis was successful with a penalty from forty metres. Ballymena continued to apply pressure with Geddis and his half back partner, Jack Fleming, controlling the tempo of the game.

After 15 minutes, Ballymena scored the first try of the morning. Both Matthew Rea and Calvin Kernohan made good ground and, when the ball was recycled, Nicholas Stirling sent Thomas Gaston clear. The winger showed excellent pace to round his opposite man and touch down below the posts. Geddis made no mistake with conversion to increase the lead to 10 – 0.

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Coleraine came back into the game immediately and enjoyed an extended period of time in the Ballymena half. After a Ballymena infringement at the breakdown, Mikey Poskitt narrowly missed his penalty attempt and the game remained finely balanced until the half-time whistle.

Ballymena, crucially, scored the opening points of the second half. Duncan Maguire and Peter Storey were stopped just short of the line, but Nicholas Stirling spotted space out wide and raced over to score in the corner. Geddis maintained his 100% record with an excellent touchline conversion.

Midway through the second half, with the away team continuing to apply pressure, George Hargy powered through several tacklers to increase Ballymena’s lead to 22 – 0. Geddis was unsuccessful with his conversion attempt.

Ballymena might have expected the Coleraine heads to drop but, instead, the home team rallied and enjoyed their best period of play for the remainder of the match. An excellent kick by Conor Shields found touch five metres from the Ballymena line and the decision to take a quick line-out proved to be the wrong one when the resulting clearance kick was charged down over the Ballymena line. A Coleraine player was first to react and touched down for a deserved try. Poskitt added the conversion and the game ended with the final score reading 22 – 7.

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Ballymena Academy: Shaw; Foster; Storey; Stirling; Gaston; Geddis; Fleming; McNabney; Caithness; Kirk; Hargy; Maguire; Kernohan; Millar; Rea. Rep: Kerr; McMurray; Fowler; McClelland; Mulholland; Knowles; McKerr; Barkley.

Related topics:ColeraineBallymena