Ulster Carpets U14 Provincial League North 19th November 2022

Scorers: Kelly(3*Try), Cassidy(2*Try), Loughran(1*Try), McIvor(1*Try), Douthart(1*Try, 6*Conv)

When these two sides met earlier in the season, Ballymena emerged victorious, with a 21-0 scoreline. The return fixture, however, saw a massive change in fortune, with a 52- 5 home victory, clearly showing the dramatic improvement in this young Rainey side.

Rainey started well, a clean catch from the kick-off allowing them to go through a few phases and settle into their game. A turnover by the visitors took play to the Rainey ’22, but good defence forced a knock-on and from the resultant scrum, a great shove by the front-row of Bradley, McElroy and Morris brought clean ball for the Rainey backs. A great miss-pass released fullback Kelly to gallop broke the length of the pitch and to score under the posts. Out-half Douthart had no problem with the conversion.

Lock McKeown took a clean catch at the restart, feeding his partner O’Connor for a drive at the Ballymena defence. The forwards made good ground, and when scrum-half Neville released his backs, Ballymena where penalised for a high tackle. Tapping quickly, hooker McElroy fed the ball left for the oncoming Kelly, who cut sideways then straightened his line to elude the Ballymena defence and score his second of the day in the corner.

The third came soon after. From a ruck in the middle of the park, centre Cassidy gathered the ball, dodged a couple of would-be tacklers, and broke for the tryline, dotting down under the posts. Once again, Douthart was on target and Rainey were well in control.

An attempted clearance from Ballymena from inside their own ‘22 found Kelly once more, who took a lovely clean high ball and put on the afterburners to sidestep his way past Ballymena, before completing his hat-trick. Douthart duly added the extras

A great scrum on half-way provided clean ball and when it reached centre Loughran, he produced a superb show-and-go to nip through the gap and race to the line. Douthart added another easy two-pointer.

A clean restart gave the Rainey forwards a chance to go through several phases, the back-row partnership of Rocks and O’Louglin gaining good ground. With scrum-half Neville spreading the ball wide, Rainey attempted to bring their wingers McKee and McIvor into play, but crucially, the last pass went begging and Ballymena turned the ball over. As they went through phases working downfield, only strong defence held them at bay, with replacement winger Bradley and backrower Mura leading by example.

Still Ballymena drove forward, eventually crossing the line, but it was held-up and suddenly hooker
McElroy popped-up from the maul with ball in-hand and offloaded to Douthart. Unbelievably, he went the length of the pitch to add his own try to the tally.

With the result well beyond doubt, the second half saw Rainey take their feet off the gas, scoring only twice more, one out wide by wing McIvor, the other being yet another breakaway by Cassidy. Both were ably converted by Douthart. Ballymena added a consolation try but were off-target with the conversion.

Thanks must go to Ballymena for providing a good game and their display of sportsmanship, and also to referee Paul Morris.

Forwards: C.Bradley, D.McElroy, O.Morris, A.McKeown, L.O’Connor, A.Mura, J.Rocks, O.O’Loughlin
Backs: B.Neville, T.Douthart, T.McKee, S.Loughran, C.Cassidy, D.McIvor, O.Kelly
Subs: M.Cunningham, C.McDonald, H.Davison, F.Bradley