Match Reporter - Geoff Ingham

For a pleasant change Donaghadee had a relatively short journey to an away match on Saturday when they travelled to play their North Down neighbours, Holywood. The weather, however, was anything but pleasant as the heavy rain continued to fall on both teams throughout the game and certainly had an influence on the type of rugby that needed to be played.

Any doubts that the early kickoff would catch the Dee team still half asleep were quickly dispersed when they immediately put Holywood under pressure, which included some fine drives from the forwards. During this period, however, the Holywood centre intercepted a loose pass and looked certain to score until he was brought down in the Dee 22 by a fine cover tackle from Connor McKee. This scare seemed to spur the Dee into action and they forced their way back up the field with several driving mauls and close interplay by the backs. This hard work finally paid off when Chris Knox finally broke the defensive line and scampered over for the first try of the game. The conversion by Danny McBride brought the score to 7-0 after 15 minutes. Five minutes later and the Dee scored an almost identical try, except this time it was Matthew Stockton who broke through and the ball was quickly recycled and McKee scored under the posts. McBride converted the easy kick to make it 14-0.

Dee continued to dominate and on the half hour mark scored the best try of the game. Chris Hamilton took a fine line out at the Holywood ten metre line and then Mark Cooper made good ground up the middle of the park. The ball was then moved to the right wing where Sam Ingham showed good skills to dummy his opposite man and then, with an impressive turn of speed, ran in the remaining 30 yards to score in the corner. McBride continued his impressive kicking display by converting from the touch line to make the score 21-0. The all-important fourth try, and resulting bonus point, came just before half-time when after good work by the forwards to get into the opposition 22, Stockton crashed through several tackles to score. McBride maintained his 100% record when he converted to leave the half-time score 28-0.

The first ten minutes of the second half saw Holywood playing the better rugby and the Dee’s defence was tested on several occasions. Eventually this pressure paid off when Holywood forced a turnover inside the Dee 22 and quickly transferred the ball wide and the centre forced his way over for a score. For the next 15 minutes much of the play took place in the middle of the park and both teams should be commended for trying to play good rugby in atrocious conditions. Mistakes were fairly frequent occurrences and the resulting scrums must have been energy sapping for both sets of forwards. Around the 65th minute Holywood were penalised and Cooper kicked deep into their 22. Dee won the line out and the forwards set up a great driving maul that trundled over the line for Kyle Morrow to touch down to score. Unfortunately Mc Bride missed the difficult conversion to leave the score at 33-5. Five minutes later Holywood were penalised for a high tackle and the ever-sharp Paul Johnston took a quick tap and sent Mark Cooper in for a try. This time McBride was unlucky when his conversion rebounded off the post to leave the final score 38-5 in Donaghadee’s favour. The man-of- the-match this week goes to all 17 guys who played in such difficult moist conditions.

So another hard earned victory keeps the Dee biting at Lurgan’s heels in the race for the league title with four games left. This Saturday sees the Dee travelling to a difficult away game against Strabane where another huge effort will be required if victory is to be achieved.