Match report by Geoff Ingham

Donaghadee travelled to Lisburn on Saturday for their first away match of the season off the back of two successive home wins. However, they were still licking their wounds from last week’s derby game as several players, including Chris Hamilton, Will Richards, Karl Yellop and Davy Skipp, joined the ever- growing injury list. With Will Hopes also departing for university, the team sheet showed significant changes with Morgan McCartney, Kyle Morrow, Callum Montgomery and Ali Barnes all starting in the forwards and Phil Collins taking a place on the bench. Robbie Ingham returned from injury and was joined on the wing by Adam Russell who was making his league debut for the 1st XV. The game got underway in excellent conditions and within the first two minutes Lisburn went ahead when the outhalf made a break and passed to the winger who touched down in the corner for an unconverted try. This spurred the Dee into action and for the next ten minutes they occupied the Lisburn half and put together some good passages of play. In the 12th minute Ali Barnes was first to react to a loose ball, hacking it towards the Lisburn line. From the ensuing ruck Lisburn thought they had secured the ball but as it crossed the line the alert Kyle Morrow dived through to touch down. Mark Cooper converted to give the Dee a 7-5 advantage. Dee continued in a similar vein for the next 20 minutes, creating several scoring opportunities but, unfortunately, could not convert any of the chances. Just past the half hour mark Lisburn made a rare visit to the Dee 22 and, unlike the Dee, converted their chance, when their centre beat a couple of Dee defenders to score close to the posts, making the conversion an easy one for his teammate. Lisburn had an opportunity to increase their lead when they were awarded a penalty but the kick hit the post and the Dee were able to clear the danger but went into half-time trailing 12 points to 7.

Lisburn started the second half brightly and spent most of the first ten minutes pressurising the Dee but were not able to break down a well-disciplined defence. Dee started to see more of the ball and a clever kick by Cooper allowed Paul Johnston to force the last Lisburn defender to kick the ball over his own dead ball line. From the resulting five metre scrum No 8 Sam Ingham picked up and was stopped just short but Ali Lockhart was at hand to crash over to score. Cooper converted to put the Dee into a slender 14-12 lead. Dee extended their lead on the hour mark when Ray Dobson broke through the Lisburn defence and set up a ruck just inside the Lisburn half. When the ball was moved to Cooper he placed a perfectly judged kick into the corner and Robbie Ingham showed his pace and won the race for the touchdown to push the Dee into a 19-12 lead.

The last quarter of the game was a scrappy affair when, yet again, Dee were not able to close out the game or score the bonus point try. Several times they were not able to win their own line out ball, which immediately forced them into defence mode instead of attack. The defence, however, was excellent throughout, with Matthew Stockton marshalling his troops well and leading by example with some great tackles to frustrate the Lisburn attack right up to the final whistle. The Dee can be content with their start to their season but know that there is work to do on the training pitch if they are to continue their winning ways. Several players put their hand up for the man of the match this week. Ray Dobson was the Dee’s main ball carrier and gave the Lisburn defence a torrid time all match. Robbie Ingham tackled hard all day and was imperious under the high ball. However, it is scrum-half Ali Lockhart who gets the nod this week for his all-round display in both defence and attack helping the Dee secure 4 valuable league points. The Dee’s next match is a Conference League match at home to Ballymena 2s on Thursday evening at 7.30pm.