Cork-ing win for Braidmen

The Cork students came to Ballymena on the back of three successive wins but, in a match originally postponed during the recent spell of bad weather, John Andrews' side ran out convincing winners.

It has been said on occasions this season that Ballymena have to give the opposition a good lead before they start playing.

This could not have been used about Saturday's match since the home side took the game to UCC right from the start and in two minutes had the first points on the board from a Davy O'Hara penalty. From that moment on there was only ever going to be one winner of this match.

The young visitors' side showed that they wanted to run with the ball but the home pack showed that they were not going to let them and controlled the match right from the start.

This was a great display by a pack. The front row worked well as a unit as did the second row and the back row. The backs got plenty of possession and made good use of it to keep the students penned in their own half for long periods of the game.

O'Hara had another chance of points with a penalty in the fifth minute but was just wide of the posts with a long range effort.

However three minutes later came the first home try. From a ruck near the half way line Simon Shawe made a great break into the UCC 22 where he offloaded to Jimmy Carson who made good ground to set up Davy O'Hara for a try under the posts and an easy conversion.

Ballymena continued to dominate the match but they could not turn their superiority into points.

Towards the end of the half Ballymena appeared to slacken off a bit and the students came back into the game a bit more but Ballymena defended well and kept their line intact.

In first half injury time Ballymena broke away into the visitor's half abut nothing appeared on until Ballymena got possession on half way and kicked into the opposition half. They were then penalised and with the last kick of the half Davy O'Hara increased the lead to 13 points.

Ballymena continued to dominate the match but still couldn't get points on the board. Thirteen minutes into the second half all they had to show for their efforts was another O'Hara penalty.

They spent long periods camped in the visitors' 22 but despite one long period on the students line Ballymena just could not get a touchdown. They then recycled the ball and got it wide to Darrell O'Kane who was through for a try but the line judge ruled that he had a foot in touch.

Roger McBurney was coming forward more often and was joining in the attacks and in the 66th minute he got the ball about 30 metres from goal and promptly put over a great dropped goal and there was now 19 points between the teams.

Ballymena seemed to take the foot off after this and the students came back at them showing that if they are allowed they could certainly run with the ball and create problems for any defence. In the last ten minutes they got a try and then deep into injury time they got through for another but the game was over long before this.

A truly worthy performance from Ballymena and the score does not do justice to the superiority Ballymena showed throughout the match.

Ballymena: R McBurney; K Moore, P Budina, C Brigl, T Seymour; D O’Hara, G Fisher (P Campbell 75); J Carson (A Warwick 65), R Fisher (J Taggart 45), S Shawe, D O’Kane (C Smith 74), B Young, A Kerr, R Hackney (P Smith 57), S McKinney.