The Dee travelled to Lurgan on Saturday on Saturday with their injury crisis exacerbated by the late withdrawal from the backline of Paul Johnston, Chris McGivern and Chris Connolly after training ground injuries on Thursday night. With the likes Matthew Stockton, Karl Yellop, Will Richards and Matthew Mingout all still missing back rower David Murray joined Adam Alexander in the centre with Owen Bailie and Dicky Bailey coming in on the wings. In the forwards Jack Chesney made a welcome return to the ranks. Meanwhile Lurgan had been recording some great results in recent weeks and included former Ulster prop Schalk van de Merwe in the ranks.

The Dee mounted early pressure on their opponent’s line but sturdy defence eventually repelled the onslaught. Lurgan began to find their feet with fifteen minutes gone and with the Dee conceding a succession of penalties the home side eventually got their reward with twenty minutes gone when they drove over from a mauled lineout. With the try converted the balance of the game swung fairly evenly between the two sides. Sadly, the Dee lost their skipper Mark Cooper before the half hour mark when he was unable to continue after a heavy tackle. This now meant the Owen Bailie moved to No. 10 and, regrettably, the impressive Robbie Grant had to play out the rest of the game on the wing rather No. 7 where his tackling and aggression had begun to cause Lurgan one or two problems. With thirty seven minutes, played the Dee were awarded a penalty and Bailie dissected the posts with confident kick from just inside the home side’s ten metre line. Unfortunately a lapse in concentration allowed Lurgan to break downfield and from an ensuing scrum their outside centre broke through the midfield defence to score under the posts with four minutes of injury time played. As Lurgan kicked the extras the referee blew for half time and the Dee turned around 14-3 down.

The second half was, for the most part, a tale of Donaghadee endeavor up front with Ray Dobson, Chris Hamilton, Paul Hamilton, Sam Ingham, Ally Barnes and Chesney carrying impressively orchestrated by stand-in skipper Ally Lockhart allowing Alexander to threaten the Lurgan central defence on more than one occasion. With the Dee looking like they were maybe on the point of narrowing the gap Paul Hamilton was yellow carded for playing the ball with his feet whilst on the ground and the momentum was lost. With five minutes to play successive Lurgan attacks eventually broke down the Dee defence and their elusive No. 15 ended up the extra man to fly in for his side’s third converted try in the corner. Once again the Dee took the game back to their opponents but, as is ever the way when playing catch-up rugby, they were found out when a promising attack broke down on the Lurgan twenty-two with the home full-back once again profiting from tired Dee defence to elude despairing tackles and score an excellent try in the other corner. Now on the brink of injury time the Dee attacked once more and were unfortunate not to come away with at least a try for their efforts but were denied by dogged defence from the Lurgan men. With five minutes of overtime played the referee blew his whistle for no side with the final score 28-3 in favour of the Pollock Park men.

A disappointing afternoon then for Donaghadee but they will be buoyed by a strong performance from the pack and will look forward to a quick return from injury for some before next week’s home game against Larne.