Cambridge give Wellington the boot in Schools’ Cup

RAB Gregg praised his Cambridge House players after the Galgorm Road school advanced into the last 16 of the Northern Bank Schools’ Cup with a 13-3 win over Wellington College in midweek.

After the somewhat turgid victory at Lurgan in the previous round, CH moved up a couple of levels in performance to see off Wellington with a lot more to spare than the result suggests.

The opening half was totally dominated by CH but an early penalty from Timmy Small was all CH had to show for their ascendency after 30 minutes.

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But a Wellington yellow card on the half hour was the key to creating space for front row Phillip Small to dive over and open a more realistic gap.

A half-time deficit of 8-0 was an achievement for Wellington and they took some inspiration from the modest total accumulated by CH and for the first quarter of the second period had more possession, although the only time they threatened came from a CH attacking move which broke down and allowed the quick breakaway, this forced CH to infringe and the resultant penalty brought Wellington a fine three points from the long distance kick.

This was their only foray into CH territory and the remainder of the match returned to the manner of the first half.

The normally reliable Timmy Small had an off day by only kicking one of six attempts, but the match was result was sealed when after several forward moves had almost brought a score finally second row Andrew Hood went over in the 55th minute to put the match well beyond Wellington.

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The Northern Bank man of the match was awarded to Andrew Hood.

“We were reasonably comfortable, we never looked like losing,” said Gregg.

“It wasn’t our greatest team performance but the pack played very well.

“Wellington were a bit unfortunate that a couple of their key players picked up injuries but we dominated the game in terms of possession and territory – if we had put away some of the chances we created, we would have won more comfortably.

See this week’s Ballymena Times for a preview of Cambridge House’s fourth round tie at Banbridge Academy.

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