Match reporter Geoff Ingham

On Wednesday evening Monaghan made the long journey to Donaghadee to play an important league match under floodlights at Donaldson Park. The Dee knew that Monaghan, lying just below them in the table, would be difficult opponents and so it proved, in what turned out to be a fiercely competitive encounter.
Dee got off to a flying start when they scored a try in the first few minutes of the game when full back Chris Knox made a great break down the left and, as the covering tackler closed in, passed to Danny McBride who went over in the corner. McBride missed the difficult conversion to leave the score at 5 -0. Monaghan immediately came back at the Dee and forced themselves deep into the Dee half. The Dee defence, however, proved up to the task and from a turnover Chris Hamilton burst through the Monaghan line and raced into the opposition’s 22. From the next scrum the ball went blind and after a couple of strong forward drives second row Conor O’Byrne forced his way over in the corner. This time, McBride was successful with a fine conversion from the touchline to take the score to 12-0 to the Dee.
If the Dee thought Monaghan were going to lie down they had another think coming as this only spurred them on and there followed 15 minutes of intense pressure on the Dee line. The Dee’s defence, as has been the case all season, was excellent as time after time they halted Monaghan’s advances. The referee awarded several penalties to Monaghan, some of which were considered quite harsh by the watching crowd, and finally this resulted in out-half Cooper being shown a yellow card. After more forward drives by Monaghan it was actually their nimble out-half who kicked through the defensive line and ran on to scoop the ball up and dive over the line to score. The relatively easy conversion was missed to leave the score at 12-5.
Dee then kicked off and were delighted to get their hands on the ball again. With only a few minutes of the first half remaining Sam Ingham charged through the Monaghan defence and was able to stay on his feet until support arrived. Monaghan were penalised at the breakdown and Paul Johnston took a quick penalty only to be tackled immediately by the Monaghan flanker. For this blatant foul play inside the 22 he was shown the yellow card. Donaghadee quickly took advantage of this mismatch in numbers when O’Byrne crashed over for his second try which McBride converted, making the score at half time 19-5 in the Dee’s favour.
As the evening dew began to settle it was the heavier Monaghan forwards who took advantage of the moist conditions and continued to pick and drive their way towards the Dee line. Another good turnover released some of the pressure and created space for Knox who made good ground but unfortunately was unable to get a pass away to the unmarked McBride on the wing. Five minutes later and Captain Matthew Stockton beat several players to force his way into the 22 but unfortunately another chance went begging when the pass failed to find its target. Eventually, Monaghan got themselves into the Dee 22 and after a plethora of scrums eventually drove over the line to score. The conversion was added to bring the score to 19-12 and the Dee knew they were in a game.
To their credit the whole of the Dee team picked up the tempo and soon found themselves deep in the Monaghan half. Monaghan were penalised twice in their 22 and on both occasions Dee opted to run a short penalty move. The second of these proved successful when Hamilton rolled his tackler and crashed over for the Dee’s fourth try which earned them a valuable bonus point. Mc Bride was successful with the difficult conversion and the score now stood at 26 -12. The last few minutes were played in the middle of the park and the only thing of note was the terrific run by O’Byrne when he sensed the chance of a hat-trick but was tackled just short of the line.
So another good win over a competitive Monaghan side that must be commended for putting up such a strong challenge after a long midweek journey. Man-of- the- Match goes to Conor O’Byrne who put in a fine 80 minutes of hard work as well as scoring a brace of tries.
Donaghadee travel to BHSFP on Saturday for their penultimate league game where another good performance will be required to ensure all five 5 points before they start to prepare for their Gordon West Cup Final on Saturday 7th April at the Kingspan Stadium. Exciting times!