Donaghadee’s season opened when they welcomed Limavady to Donaldson Park for a 4 x 20 minutes training game. With the new season starting so early there were quite a few unavailabilities and this fact, plus a couple of minor injuries to senior players, gave new Head Coach Graham Cloke the opportunity to blood many of the youngsters from last year’s successful 2nd XV.

Limavady opened with an early unconverted try in the first quarter with Donaghadee hitting back in the second with a well taken Andy McGrugan intercept try converted by Paul Blewitt. The Dee maintained this lead until deep in the fourth quarter when Limavady converted a penalty to take a 8-7 lead. This stung the Dee back into life and a sweeping downfield movement was ended when a superb Richard Martindale line allowed him to break the opposition defence before offloading to the supporting Adam Torrans who sprinted the final twenty metres to the line – Blewitt again converting. With the Dee now thinking they had done just enough Limavady decided otherwise and utilised turnover ball to sweep up the field via their impressive 10, 12 & 13 and some sloppy home defence allowed the latter to score under the posts. With the simple conversion being added the referee brought proceedings to a close with Limavady emerging victors by the narrowest of margins 15-14.

Although ultimately disappointing Head Coach Cloke will have learned a lot from the game and will undoubtedly address the home sides lack of continuity, sometime fragile defence and propensity to incur penalties against during training this incoming week. He will also, of course, be mindful that many players were making the 1st XV debuts, this was the oppositions third game – a fact which was extremely evident during the course of play – and also the unfamiliarity with each other of the various Dee combinations deployed during the course of the afternoon. Finally he will be happy with the positives on show with quite a few of those who either stepped up or are new to the Club enjoying sound starts but the key will be knitting together a sustained performance during the course of the side’s next outing when the return of those absent yesterday will improve the build-up towards the start of the competitive season.