On a fresh autumn afternoon, Armagh kicked off and immediately put UCC under pressure, gaining an early penalty.They moved the ball from side to side but the UCC defence held until centre Fred Harris forced his way over on the left hand side of the pitch. Fred showed great awareness and moved from the open side to the short side and took his try well. Aiden O’Kane missed the conversion.
UCC did look dangerous when they moved the ball and they broke through Armagh’s first line of defence on a couple of occasions but could not get that important score as Armagh held out. Armagh continued to give penalties away at vital times and therefore could not get any consistency in their game. The home side doubled their lead with a try by Ethan Graham in the left hand corner. Again, the conversion was missed.
For the next ten minutes torrential rain came down and with the ball being so slippery, there were a number of knock-ons on both sides. John Glasgow was also yellow carded for tackling a man who was already on the ground with the referee giving Curtis Pollock a stern warning about his team. Both teams resorted to kicking the ball somewhat aimlessly and on one occasion, Armagh kicked the ball dead. They hung on to their lead to leave the score 10 – 0 to the home side.
Whoever got the next score would be vital and with UCC having 2 men in the sin bin at the same time, Armagh turned the screw. After a series of drives on the UCC line, Scott Wilson burrowed over close to the posts for Owen O’Kane to convert.
Not to be denied, UCC scored a good try of their own through a well worked maul from a lineout. Another penalty was given to UCC when winger Graham was judged to have taken an attacker out. UCC now back to 15 men, got their tails up and scored again to leave the Armagh supporters slightly edgy.
Armagh brought all their substitutes on and from a well worked lineout near the halfway line, Pollock put Sam Cunningham into space and Sam ran 45 metres to score Armagh’s bonus point try. The fight really went out of UCC for those last ten minutes and Armagh held out even with Sam Glasgow in the bin for the last few minutes. Final score, City of Armagh 24 UCC 12
