Dee lose out to Coleraine

Match report by Geoff Ingham

Donaghadee entertained Coleraine on Saturday in a tightly contested League game at Donaldson Park. Before the kick off both teams and spectators observed a minute’s silence in memory of Club stalwart Hans Arthur. The Dee team, still with a concerning injury list, showed a few changes from the previous league game. In the forwards Davy Skipp moved into the middle of the front row and Andy McCracken and Ali Barnes returned in the back row. In the backs Robbie Ingham moved to the right wing allowing Zac Moraghan to make his league debut at fullback. The persistent rain throughout the morning had made the conditions moist underfoot but thankfully the rain stayed away during the game. It was the visitors who got off to the better start, immediately putting the Dee defence under pressure inside their 22 and within 5 minutes they got on the scoresheet when they created an overlap and the winger scored in the corner. For the next 20 minutes of the half it was Dee who had the large majority of possession and territory but the Coleraine defence stood firm and the Dee couldn’t seem to conjure up many scoring opportunities. Although they were winning good scrum ball, with Davy Skipp regularly finding Sam Ingham in the line out, time and time again their efforts proved fruitless. Two incidents in the latter part of the first half were to prove critical in the overall outcome of the game. Firstly, on the 25 minute mark a miss move in the backline saw the ball spun out to Robbie Ingham who straightened and made good ground towards the line. As he was passing inside to Paul Johnston just short of the line the Coleraine defender appeared to slap the ball down without a chance of gathering it cleanly. The crowd yelled for a deliberate knock on and possibly a penalty try but the referee judged it to be just a knock on and the chance to even up the scores was gone. Secondly, with only a couple of minutes to go before halftime, the Dee were pressuring the Coleraine line when, unfortunately, the ball was spilled forward. The Coleraine played the advantage and broke out of their 22 and moved the ball to the centre who outstripped the Dee defence to score under the posts. The try was converted to leave the half time score 12-0 in their favour. This sucker punch seemed to take the wind out of the Dee’s sails as Coleraine dominated the first 15 minutes of the second half. The Dee defence held out on several occasions but eventually the pressure told and Coleraine scored out wide and the difficult kick was converted increasing the lead to 19-0. Dee then came back into the match and good drives by the likes of Ali Barnes, Ray Dobson and Paul Hamilton pushed Coleraine towards their line and on the hour mark scrum half Ali Lockhart picked up from the back of a ruck and muscled his way over to score. Cooper was successful with the conversion to bring the score to 19-7 to Coleraine. The pendulum then swung the other way when Coleraine scored their bonus point try when, after battering away unsuccessfully in the right hand corner, they spun the ball quickly to the left hand side where the winger squeezed in at the corner to make the score 24-7. Almost immediately Dee scored their second try when Sam Ingham charged down an attempted clearance kick and was stopped just short of the line. The ball was then recycled several times until Paul Hamilton ran through to touch down. Cooper converted to bring the score to 24-14. For the last 5 minutes Dee pushed hard for an opportunity to score again to earn a losing bonus point and a lovely break by Adam Alexander almost put Lockhart in for a try. Dee were awarded a penalty on the stroke of full time but unfortunately the kick went the wrong side of the uprights and the referee blew for full time with the score at 24-14. Paul Hamilton performed well in his second match back and Adam Alexander had a good game at inside centre, however, man of the match this week goes to Sam Ingham for his performance in defence and attack. Dee will reflect on this game as an opportunity missed as, although Coleraine deserved their win on the day, the Dee team know that their own performance
was not up to their usual standard. Next week Dee travel to Ballymoney for another league encounter, KO. 2.30pm.