Coleraine lose tight encounter with Ballyclare
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Gareth McCallum, Marcus McQulken and Archie Kettle attempt to stop a Ballyclare attack.
B'clare 1st XV......7
C'raine 1st XV......5
Coleraine went out on Saturday looking for their first win of the pre-season after last week's defeat to a strong Ulster Under 21 side.
Coleraine started off the better of the two teams. The pack took control in the scrums early on, with some powerful scrimmaging from captain Leslie George and Sam Bartlett.
With injuries in the backs opportunities were presented returning players to push for a place in the starting 1st XV, with Stevie Patterson doing well when it came to tackling and running with the ball.
The conditions where terrible due to a heavy downpour and the pitch was not up to the best of standards, which proved costly to Coleraine early on when Ballyclare's attack wrong-footed the Coleraine defence, leaving them the easy task of bundling over for the first try of the game, followed by a successful conversion to give Ballyclare a 7-0 lead.
Coleraine tried to get back into the match during the first half, but the visitors side grew frustrated with some refereeing decisions and at themselves at not being able to take any chances, going in at the break 7-0.
Coleraine looked more positive in the second-half. Centre Steve Castles had a great chance to score in the corner but a poor pass gave Ballyclare time to get back and close down the Australian back, who was unlucky not to get his first try of the season.
Coleraine began to dominate most areas in the second-half, especially in the line out. Peter Bogle entered the game after the break and made an immediate impact by intercepting two of Ballyclare's line outs.
The pressure finally paid off for Coleraine on 68 minutes after a well-worked move let the pack hooker Neil Montgomery swooped in to score a good team try. Steve Castles was unlucky to miss the conversion. Towards the end of the second half Coleraine could have won the game but poor passing and handling on top of the poor weather conditions couldn't seal the win they had hoped for and Ballyclare won 7-5 in a game that the away side felt they should of won.
Club Chairman Wayne McCabe said players and coaches could take positives from the game in spite of the defeat.
“I think the team will feel they should have won, but Ballyclare's defence stayed strong and did well to come away with the win. We were missing some of are first choice backs so we had to do a bit of reshuffling but the players who stepped in did well," he said.
“I thought young Stevie Castles did well and was unlucky not to put away two good chances but it was going to be hard with the conditions being so bad. I think we improved on a variety of things since I watched last week's game against Ulster under 21's especially in defence we weere dominating most things in the pack throughout the game.
“You can really see something exciting starting to develop within the team and it's great to see the work that both Richard Kernaghan and Gary Longwell have been doing is paying off. We will take the positives from the game and work on the mistakes we made into next weeks Dooley's Cup match against Banbridge 2nds."
