On Saturday afternoon the First XV faced St Marys who came up through to IA this year. St Mary’s have recruited well bringing the experienced Greg Jones, released from Ulster, into their back row, Dan Goggins who played for Munster and Mountaulan in the French Pr02 League and a number of other players. City of Armagh made a couple of changes to their lineup, with Shea O’Brien and Kyle Faloon changing positions, Josh Mc Kinley was not available so John Glasgow and James Crummie filled the second row with James Anderson at blind side wing forward. Griffin Phillipson and Josh Cunningham and Finn Fehnert came on to the bench.
Played in ideal conditions, St Marys kicked off with both sides looking to move the ball, with Lewis Finlay sniping around the fringes and taking a tap penalty which should have been penalised for Marys not back ten metres. In fact Armagh made all the running in the first 10 minutes, but just couldn’t break through the stubborn St Marys defence. The away side looked dangerous themselves and with the Armagh defence quite narrow, Conor Dean kicked into the Armagh 22 and their industrious number 7, Ethan Baxter collected the ball to score after 8 minutes. The conversion was missed. Back came Armagh and when Rocky Olsen kicked to the corner, the ball was won and the effective subsequent maul saw Neil Faloon emerge with the ball over the line. His brother Kyle converted to leave Armagh 7-5 ahead. Both teams were struggling to break through sound defences, but Armagh should possibly have got another try when Nigel Simpson, leading from the front was taken out in the air at a lineout. This was missed by referee Johnny Erskine and after a period of treatment, Simpson was able to continue. A scrum was awarded to Armagh 5 metres out but it wheeled at the last minute when Finlay was trying to pick up and somehow St Marys were able to disrupt and come up with the ball. Armagh did increase their lead when Kyle Faloon slotted over a fine penalty to put Armagh further ahead, 10-5. Mick O’Gara then kicked a penalty for St Marys to reduce the score to 10-8.
The last ten minutes of the half were a disaster for the home side. A couple of missed tackles allowed St Marys to increase their lead through Dan Goggin when Armagh were reduced to 14 men with Shea O’Brien down injured after competing for a restart. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, a three quarter move down the right wing resulted in the Mary’s scrum-half running a good support line for another try. Was there a forward pass there? In the space of 10 minutes the score went from 10-5 in Armagh’s favour to 22-10 against at half time. The sizable home support as well as the team and management were shell shocked.
The second half was slightly better from Armagh’s perspective in that their set piece steadied up a bit and they continued to try and get back into the game. St Marys went further ahead when, with all the pressure on the right hand side of the pitch, Goggin saw Ramirez all on his own and a deft cross kick was touched down for the bonus point try. O’Gara converted and also kicked a penalty to leave Armagh with a mountain to climb. To be fair they never gave up and four minutes from time, an excellent break by Sam Cunningham down the left wing was finished off by Kyle Faloon. In his haste to get the game going again, he missed an easy conversion. Armagh were not finished yet and whether St Marys switched off or Armagh upped their game, Evin Crummie drove over from close in to get the third try. Faloon converted to leave the final score, City of Armagh 22 St Marys 32.
The large crowd and indeed the team and their management were disappointed with the middle management of the game when St Marys scored 27 unanswered points. The lineout functioned better than the previous week and the scrum certainly held its own. A lack of concentration and poor kicking didn’t help the cause. The team now faces a difficult trip to Limerick to face another newly promoted side, Garryowen and the coaching team will be looking for an improved performance across the board.
