Superb Noble try helps Ballymoney to victory over Derry

BALLYMONEY U16 33

Ballymoney U16 went to play City of Derry looking to go top of the league and they succeeded in style.

The match was kicked off by Derry into the waiting hands of Ballymoney’s second row Danial Brennan who tucked the ball under his arm and crashed into the on rushing City of Derry pack. This was always going to be a bruising encounter by two sides boasting several Ulster youth players in both teams.

Ballymoney drew first blood in the second minute, from a well rehearsed team move off the back of a scrum in Derry’s 22 with slick hands and good running lines by Ballymoney’s backsDerry’s defence opened up for Graham Donnelly to touch down for Ballymoney’s first, converted by Stevie Culbertson.

Ballymoney’s pack were working hard at the breakdown to produce clean ball for the backs who were making good ground on most of their attacks but just not converting possession into points.

Approaching halftime city were awarded a penalty for hands in the ruck in Ballymoney’s half. Derry’s number 8 took a quick tap and drove hard into the toon’s 22 which gave Derry’s backs a good opportunity to level the score which they took with their centre finding a small gap in Ballymoney’s defence to crash over for a well deserved converted try.

Ballymoney kicked off the second half disappointed to have lost their lead, knowing they needed to up their game they produced a terrific try which was finished by centre Ewan Noble. Again converted by Culbertson to leave the score 7-14

From that point on Ballymoney tore into city of Derry at every opportunity and the next try came shortly after. Derry were starting to tire from the amount of defending they had to do with Ballymoney’s pack taking turns to run in their pods at them, scrumhalf Culbertson spotted a gap, sold the defence a dummy pass and crashed over for try No 3 conversion missed from the touch line.

Ballymoney’s forth came from really nice interplay between forwards and backs resulting in big Donnelly getting his second of the day converted again by Culbertson score 7-26 to Ballymoney

The fifth and final try of the day was scored by James Orr who had a great game in defence and attack.

Converted by lee Culbertson who was playing his first game back after recovering from a broken collar bone only six weeks ago.

Every player showed their metal in this match and they proved to themselves that hard work pays off as this win takes them to the top of the league..

Man of the match goes to Ewan Noble because he tackled everything on the day including the corner flag and scored the best worked try of the five.

Ballymoney youth section would like to thank the hospitality and generosity of the ladies of City of Derry RFC for the outstanding spread of food provided to us on Saturday.

Training is on Tuesday from 6pm if you fancy giving rugby a go everyone welcome.