Match report by Geoff Ingham

Donaghadee travelled to Newforge on Saturday to take on an improving PSNI team who had recently climbed to third in the league. With Sam Ingham and Paul Johnston still on the injured list and Jamie Wilson unavailable, Chris Scott started at number 8 and Jack Chesney slotted in at prop. Johnny Gamble had his first start at hooker and Robbie Ingham moved from the wing to scrum-half. The playing surface was in fantastic condition, however, everyone knew the strong wind blowing diagonally across the pitch would have an impact on the fluidity of the game. The Dee kicked off and spent the first few minutes in the opposition half, but PSNI were solid in defence. After a penalty infringement by the Dee, a huge kick to touch by the PSNI out-half took the play into the Dee’s 22. PSNI won the line out and after several hard drives by the forwards they crashed over to register the first score. The conversion was missed to leave the score at 5 -0 after 7 minutes. For the next 10 minutes Donaghadee struggled to get hold of the ball as PSNI continued to use their forwards to make inroads into Dee territory. When they eventually got possession they quickly got themselves into promising positions but on at least three occasions they failed to execute due to either a bad pass or taking the wrong option. This let PSNI off the hook and they were able to make good use of the strong wind to clear their lines and make the Dee start building again from within their own half. It wasn’t until the 35th minute that Dee finally managed to cross the PSNI line. Karl Yellop broke through several tackles and then fed Mark Cooper who jinked his way past a couple of defenders before feeding Chris McGivern on the wing. A superb cover tackle by the PSNI fullback stopped McGivern just short and from the resulting ruck the referee signalled for a Dee penalty. The Dee literally threw caution to the wind and spun the ball wide where a huge overlap allowed Chris Scott to scamper over the line untouched to level the scores. Cooper missed the difficult conversion. In the last minute of the half Dee’s indiscipline let them down when a silly penalty was conceded at a ruck. Another huge kick to touch resulted in PSNI scoring an almost identical try to their first when the forwards mauled and then drove their way over the line. The conversion was missed to leave the half time score 10-5 to PSNI.

After stern words from the coach at half-time the Dee started the second half in determined mood and quickly set up camp in the PSNI half and the Dee supporters thought it was only a matter of time until Dee started to score a few tries. However, due to a combination of really good defence by the PSNI, particularly their big centres, and rather too predictable play by the Dee these scores did not materialise. After 15 minutes of sustained pressure, and with PSNI perhaps lucky not to have a man in the bin due to the number of penalties conceded, PSNI stole a line out and made a rare visit to the Dee’s 22. Dee’s defence stood firm and an excellent turnover by Yellop relieved the pressure. The Dee soon got back into the PSNI half and for the next 20 minutes hammered on PSNI’s door but found it firmly shut. As the minutes ticked by the Dee faithful on the sidelines were getting more nervous and the PSNI were getting a sniff of victory. With only 2 minutes to go the Dee finally found the key to open that door when after another line out win, Kyle Morrow broke through a tackle and gave a sublime offload to Chris Hamilton who ran the 10 yards to score between the posts. Cooper converted the simple conversion to make the final score 12-10 to the Dee. Contenders for Man-of-the-Match this week included Morrow and Hamilton(of course) in the forwards and scrum half Ingham for his all round play. However, this week the award must go to centre Karl Yellop who was immense throughout the game with his strong carries and solid defence.

This was another important win for the Dee, however, the team know that the overall performance was not up to their usual high standards that they have set themselves this season so there will be lots of work to be done in training this week before the home match against North Down neighbours Holywood this Saturday.