Stilloragn 12 - Guinness 17
J3 Friendly - Nov 21, 2004
Unfortunately we lost at the weekend but I think we played well against a very physical Guinness side and a home ref. There was a mix of experience on the team and my thanks to the Matty, Quinn, Conor and Richie for filling in at the last minute. It was a tough physical match with a lot of questionable decisions?..if you know what I mean. It's games like this that create team spirit and it was great to see players backing each other up?.thanks Paul.
Richie was unfortunate not to be given a try after chasing a ball up the wing and sprinting half the pitch only to turn round and find the lines man had called the play back to half way. We had the beating of them in the backs and the first ball spread wide ended in a try by Octavio. The Guinness pack mauled very well and scored a try late in the second half. They scored 2 more tries in the second half one of them very questionable.
There were some great displays from the pack Wesley, Conor, Matty, Quinn, Nigel, Noel, Danny and Joe, who got stuck into everything. In the backs Ken scored a great individual try to take us close to winning it, but it wasn't to be. There were a couple a factors against us ?..the ref, my boot or over use of (I know Leo, I know), some very late tackles, the ref. Even fighting this up hill battle we could have scored a couple more but were very unlucky on a couple of occasions. Stephen, Garreth and Paul played great in the centre of the field both in defence and attack. Richie and Simon chased and supported everything and Octavia was very solid on the wing, catching some difficult balls.
All in all a good day out and I think everyone enjoyed it. The leagues start next week and I hope both teams playing next week show the same commitment and team spirit.