MHS YEAR 8 RUGBY SQUAD QUALIFY AT BALLYMONEY RUGBY CLUB
The Year 8 boys’ rugby squad have been training hard since early October 2014 and for most of them their development from absolute beginners has been a testament to their dedication and hard work.
On Tuesday 10th March they travelled to Ballymoney Rugby Club to take part in their district qualifier of the Ulster High School Year 8 competition. This was the first time our school has participated in this event and with not knowing what to expect from the other schools our boys were understandably nervous as they stepped off the bus - matters were not helped as they watched a near six feet tall Dunluce player jog past.
Due to a team arriving late we were forced to play the first match of the day against the home town team of Ballymoney High School, a school who has been playing rugby for many years. Adam ‘AJ’ Brown opened the scoring with a strong run after some good work by Richard Hawe at the base of the scrum. Our big runners were too powerful for their defence with Ethan McClenaghan and Mark McCullagh barging their way over in the first half. AJ added another try before the Ballymoney boys scored one of their own. Conceding this score gave our boys a boost and Jack Brown showed his pace with a 20 meter sprint to dive in at the corner. AJ completed his hatrick with the final score of the game.
No time to leave the pitch and celebrate the boys only had time for a quick pep talk before lining up to play a very physical looking Limavady side. Ethan and AJ scored in the first half and our boys did well to absorb some very strong Limavady offence in the second half with Kyle Woods and Ryan Harkness making some big hits in midfield. Zach Ferson was un unfortunate not to go in for a couple of scores late on in the game.
Again, with only a couple of minutes to catch breaths and rotate squad members, we lined up to face our local rivals Sperrin Integrated coached by former Ulster forward Jeremy Hastings. Having played Sperrin in a friendly pre-Christmas we knew what to expect and right from the first whistle the technical awareness and direct running of our opposition called for some heroic defence from the whole team. Good offloading by Ross Gorman and strong running from Ewan Bolton and Ozzie Rogers was thwarted by some good tackling by the Sperrin back division. AJ scored two tries in the first half and we took our foot off the pedal at the start of the second allowing Sperrin back into the game as they levelled scores at two tries each. With seconds to go AJ powered his way over from 10 meters, with a couple of defenders hanging on to him and he completed his second hatrick of the tournament. As the try was awarded the referee blew the final whistle - our cheers for joy were somewhat muted due to sheer exhaustion.
Confidence was very high as we sat down in the bright sunshine to watch our final opponents, Dunluce, play their penultimate game and some boys were looking forward to being in the starting lineup but much to the boys’ disappointment Dunluce left straight after this game having lost all their other games quite heavily.
This disappointment was soon transformed to delight as it was announced that we had qualified as clear group winners for the finals tournament to be held in Lurgan on the 20th March.
Congratulations to captain Ethan McClenaghan, our player of the tournament and top scorer AJ Brown and all the tournament squad members on this fantastic set of performances!
To the extended squad members who have only just began to attend rugby practice or who had other commitments and couldn’t travel to this tournament keep working hard in training!
Bring on the finals!!!