Armagh finished off with a less than clinical win against a young and inexperienced Banbridge side struggling to find form. In a game where Armagh had 7 starters in their pack all under 25 they finished off the round robin of the senior league winning 40 -21 in the process. In their 3 matches so far they have scored 140 points and conceded 36 scoring 22 tries in the process. They now qualify for the Stevenson shield final to be played in November against likely Dungannon at the Palace Grounds.
For the game last Saturday Paul Mullen came onto the front row and played the whole 80 minutes as did Niall Carville, as Philip Fletcher strained a calf in the warm up. James Crummie came into the second row to partner John Glasgow who was captain for the day. His brother Sam, getting back to full fitness was open side forward with James Anderson moving to the No 6 spot to allow Neil Faloon to get valuable game time. 20 year old,Jack Steenson retained his place to allow Lewis Finlay a further time to recover and Rocky Olsen started his second game. Matthew Hooks moved to the centre to replace the injured Evin Crummie and Andrew Willis switched from 7 to go to his former position on the wing, as Shea O’Brien had a slight injury. Two 19 year olds were on the bench – Finn Fehnert as back up hooker and Josh Watterson – the only back sub.
Played in glorious conditions for spectators, Banbridge took an early lead through a Rob Lyttle opportunist try converted by Adam Doherty. At this stage of the game Armagh couldn’t get a foot hold as the referee Stuart Douglas was very sharp on any hint of a high tackle and penalised Armagh on 2-3 occasions. When they finally got a couple of penalties, Olsen put great kicks into the Banbridge half. From a lineout 20 metres out, Armagh used a very effective maul to get a try on the corner through Jack Reaney. Kyle Faloon missed a difficult conversion but was able to convert a second Reaney try to leave Armagh 12-7 in the lead. With poor discipline and back chat Armagh constantly fell foul of referee Douglas and this prevented any further scores. The sizeable Armagh crowd were slightly disappointed at a start stop game as the half time whistle went.
After a stern talking to, Armagh started the second half off with another superb lineout and maul drive which had veteran Neil Faloon grasping the ball from hooker Reaney to prevent Reaney getting his hatrick. Faloon converted and Armagh sensed that Banbridge were on the rack. A slightly dubious try from winger Cunningham increased Armagh’s lead with a try in the corner. Kyle converted again to leave the scores 26-7. Even though they were now being punished in the scrum, Banbridge managed to reply with 2 tries of their own through a break through the middle by number 8 Laird and another by Jonny Scott, again both converted by Doherty. Armagh were still dominant on most phases of the game with captain Glasgow barging through for a well earned try and when Andrew Willis got the ball 15 meters out there was no stopping the veteran winger.
Armagh used their bench wisely to get 4 of their subs game time but Nigel Simpson just on in the final 15 minutes was yellow carded for a high tackle. Nigel wasn’t best pleased as he wanted more than 4 minutes in the game to test out his fitness. It was great to see James Morton starting his 23rd year of senior rugby alongside the 19 year old Fehnert who wasn’t even born at the start of Mortons senior career. All facets of the game worked well with Armagh giving away some pointless penalties and challenging the referee on occasion. Apart from a couple of overthrows and crooked mistakes, the lineout worked well and even some of the Banbridge ball was stolen. The maul from the lineout was very effective with new coach Daryl Maxwell watching his first game reasonably satisfied in this facet of the game. Attack coach Gareth Steenson wanted much quicker use of the ball and had a couple of issues with the referee’s interpretation of advantage law.
Head coach Chris Parker was delighted that some of the younger players stepped up to the mark and acquitted themselves really well. Positives were the third winning bonus point and the bigger panel of players being used. However, Chris acknowledged that there will have to be a lot more work done in the next 2 weeks leading up to the Hinch AIL game but overall, he is pleased with the work being done. What is great to see is the increase in support Chris has, with Daryl and Gareth taking off a lot of pressure backed up by James Hanna, Chris Colvin and Johnny Reaney. Bigger challenges lie ahead though, and all Armagh need to get behind the team
