Match report by Geoff Ingham

Donaghadee travelled to Gibson Park on Thursday evening to play a strong Malone 2s team in a Conference League game. The teamsheet showed several changes from the previous week due to illness, unavailability and injury. Jamie Wilson came in to the forward pack at prop with Paul Hamilton moving to the back row. Robbie Ingham started at scrum half, Chris Connelly and Chris Scott played in the centre and the wing berths were filled by Owen Baillie and Andrew Wright. Malone started the game stronger and made their first breakthrough after 10 minutes when their nippy centre danced his way through several despairing tackles to touch down. This seemed to spur the Dee into action and for the next 20 minutes played really attractive rugby, trying to keep the ball alive with quick rucks and impressive offloading. The forwards led the way with the likes of Paul Hamilton, Callum Montgomery and Sam Ingham regularly crossing the gainline. This pressure eventually paid off when, after several phases of play inside the Malone 22, Robbie Ingham scooped up a loose pass and crashed over to score. It was Malone’s turn to come back into the game and the Dee’s defence was tested on several occasions and it took some great hits from Ray Dobson, Davy Skipp and Garry Smith to keep them at bay. Although the Dee forwards were certainly a match for the big Malone pack it was the Malone backs that had the upper hand and they managed to cross the whitewash a couple of times in the last ten minutes of the half to take the score to 19 -5. The second half followed a similar pattern to the first with Malone having the majority of the possession. The Dee stuck to their task admirably and some critical turnovers by Sam Ingham and Jamie Wilson close to the goal line prevented Malone running away with the game and some great try saving tackles by Johnny Bell and Robbie Ingham impressed the small group of Dee supporters. Malone, however, eventually broke down the Dee’s defence and ran in three tries in the last 15 minutes of the game to make the final score 36-5 in their favour. Dee should not be too disappointed with this result as they put in a great effort and at times played excellent rugby. Man of the match Paul Hamilton put in an impressive performance with his strong ball carrying throughout the game. The Dee’s next game is away to Banbridge 2s on Saturday 18th December at 2.30pm.