Rainey begin season with defeat

Rainey ES 14 Regent House 26 ON SATURDAY 10th September Rainey hosted Regent House School from Newtownards. There was a very scrappy opening period in which both sides made many mistakes and found it difficult to put phases together.
By The Newsroom
Published 13th Sep 2011, 10:47 BST

Regent settled to the pace of the game quickest and scored a converted try after about twenty minutes. Rainey struggled to get field position, although Fearghal Shivers made a good break only to be well tackled by the Regent fullback. Regent dominated territory for the remainder of the half and scored a second try in the corner. (HT 0-12).

Regent caught Rainey on the hop early in the second half scoring a converted try to lead 0-19.

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Rainey at last started to play with a little more consistency and urgency. They put the Regent defence under more pressure and moved the ball well on occasions. It was after a nice piece of play by the Rainey backs that they got their first score; with left wing Jamie Noble touching down. Martin Connolly converted to narrow the score to 7-19. Rainey continued to attack and number eight Michael Dawson was held up over the line. From the resulting scrum, out half Martin Connolly displayed a piece of genius by sidestepping his way past a handful of defenders to score. He then converted his try to leave the score 14-19.

With both sides starting to tire late on a number of chances were blown. Regent however put the game beyond Rainey’s grip with a try under the posts right on the final whistle. It was converted to give Regent a 14-26 victory.

Both sides displayed signs of having the potential to do well, although each of the coaches will expect improvements over the coming weeks. Both sides also tried to play enterprising rugby which should entertain their supporters this season.

For the first time in many years Rainey fielded 8 teams on Saturday 10th September. This is a great achievement for one of the smallest rugby playing Grammar schools in Ulster rugby.

The results of the other games are as follows:- 2nd XV won 32-24, 3rd XV lost 36-3, Medallion lost 17-7, U14 A lost 41-0, U14 B lost 47-0, U13 A lost 27-5 and the U13 B won 25-10.