Back to AIL action this weekend for Nicholl men’s

The North West men are still unbeaten in the AIL having won three of their fixtures and drawn one and they have collected three bonus point along the way for scoring four tries in those games.

Derry are in second place in the league just one point behind leaders Ballymena.

Old Crescent and City of Derry have played one another five times over the years always in AIL Division 2 and this will be the Limerick men’s fourth visit to the Maiden City.

The first fixture between the teams was in season 1998-1999 when Derry lost 34-20 in Limerick. Derry have only won once against Old Crescent and that was down in Limerick last year in the final game of the season.

The result was 46-33 with the Derry men coming out on top in a memorable game in which Simon Logue produce a Man of the Match performance as his team just held the advantage by scoring seven tries to five.

Old Crescent have not had the best of starts to their league campaign this season having been beaten three times by Old Wesley, Rainey and Barnhall.

They went down heavily away to Wesley and at they lost 38-20 home to Rainey, their only victory was at home to Bruff in the second game of the season.

Old Crescent have just accumulated four points and are fourth from the bottom of AIL 2A at this early stage of the season.

Derry’s AIL campaign suffered a slight setback two weeks ago away to Bective Rangers at Donnybrook when they had to score three unconverted tries in the second half to come from 28-13 down to secure a draw as they owned the last 30 minutes of the game.

The next three weeks will be crucial to Mark Nicholl’s men and their ambition to get promotion for the first time to AIL Division 1B. Following this weeks home fixture against Old Crescent they are away to Bruff in Limerick and then away again to Queens in Belfast in successive weeks and victory this weekend would be the perfect start to this phase of the campaign.

The record overall is not great against through the years against Old Crescent but it would be a big upset if in their current for the Limerick men were to derail Derry’s ambition.

The Judges Road men put in a great performance last weekend in the Senior Cup semi-final against Ballynahinch from AIL Division going down narrowly.

Derry were missing their Captain David Funston and out half Richard McCarter last Saturday and with those two players back this weekend the home supporters will be expecting a victory.

City of Derry Head coach Mark Nicholl believes his side will bounce back from Saturday’s Ulster Senior Cup defeat if the players can replicate the desire shown against Ballynahinch.

Nicholl wasn’t too upset following his side’s defeat at the weekend and while he felt they deserved to win, he thought his players gave their all.

“All the points ’Hinch got came from our mistakes, that was the disappointing thing,” admitted the City of Derry coach.

“We talked before the game about how you win a semi-final by playing basic, keeping the error count down and not giving away penalties but unfortunately those things proved our downfall.

“We certainly weren’t overawed but it was a game I still believe we could, and probably should have won, so we are disappointed in that respect but in terms of effort and determination, I cannot fault the players.

“We like to play the game on an edge and a lot of the close decisions seemed to go Ballynahinch’s way but I’m not going to complain about the players.

“I thought they put in a tremendous effort and if they can replicate that effort for the rest of the season, I will be more than happy.”