Braidmen suffer defeat by students

Ballymena are concentrating on the AIB AIL and all their efforts will be on Saturday’s crunch match at Eaton Park against Dungannon, where victory would ensure Ballymena retaining their position in Division 1B for next season.

Queens kicked off in Saturday’s match and got possession. They recycled the ball and it was moved along the line to John Backus who scored in the corner with less then a minute on the clock.

Ballymena played their way into the game and in 11 minutes Alan McCluggage put over a penalty and two minutes later repeated the dose to put Ballymena ahead. However this lead was short-lived as two minutes later Queens got their second try.

Queens kicked off and Ballymena had possession but they kicked it away straight into the arms of Stuart Campbell the opposing full back. He made good ground into the Ballymena half and Queens were quick to the breakdown. They recycled the ball and moved it out to David McIlwaine who went through a gap to score under the posts and got up to convert his try to make the score 12 points to six.

This appeared to galvanise the home side into action and they enjoyed their best period of the match and took the game to the visitors with most of the attacks being spearheaded by veteran Johnny Wells, returning to the first team after a long absence.

Queens came back and a swift passing movement ended with the number four getting a try which was converted by McIlwaine. Ballymena replied with another McCluggage penalty to make the half time score 19 points to 9 for Queens.

McIlwaine had a chance to increase their lead with a penalty which he missed but on the hour he made up for this with a brilliant dropped goal.

Ballymena responded to this with a more positive attitude and as well as winning a lot more ball they were also making good use of it. Young substitutes Blane McIlroy, a scrum half from Methody, and Luke Marshall were making good runs into Queens territory and in the 68th minute McIlroy rounded off a good move with a try under the posts. Unfortunately the conversion attempt hit a post and stayed out.

Ballymena continued to attack against a tired defence and with time running out Kyle Moore got under the posts for another try but yet again an easy conversion was missed – costly misses in the big picture.

Ballymena: R McBurney; A Smyth, P Budina, K Moore, S Castle (L Marshall 42); J Wells, A McCluggage (B McIlroy 45); J Carson, J Taggart (C Cundell 70), A Warwick (A Ferguson 50), D O’Kane, C Smyth (S Mulholland), R Hackney, W McKay, A Kerr.