Skipper Cooper wins it at the death

Match report by Geoff Ingham

Donaghadee travelled to Glynn on Saturday to play Larne in a Kukri Championship League game. As the Dee had won the corresponding home fixture the Dee certainly started as favourites for the win, although Larne were in a confident mood after their win in the Towns Cup the previous week. A few changes on the team sheet saw Callum Montgomery return to the second row and Matthew Mingout replace the injured Paul Johnston in the centre with Johnny Bell also returning to fill the No. 15 jersey. Things did not start well for the Dee as hooker Davy Skipp injured himself in the warm up so Andy McCracken came off the bench to join the forwards.

As the game kicked off in good conditions, the Dee quickly got into their stride and put together some good phases of play but the Larne defence coped with everything the Dee threw at them. However, the breakthrough came after 12 minutes when Ray Dobson and Robbie Grant made good ground and Callum Montgomery stormed through like a bat out of hell to score in the corner. Mark Cooper missed the difficult conversion. Dee continued to pressurise the Larne defence but a poor pass went to ground and the Larne winger kicked through, gathered the ball and ran in to score. The conversion was successful to give Larne a 7-5 lead. Dee’s bad luck continued when Mingout suffered a concussion and had to be replaced, Andy Wright coming onto the wing as Chris McGivern moved into the centre. At the same time Larne kicked a penalty to extend their lead to 5 points. Dee responded well to this adversity and the forwards in particular raised their game and took play deep into the Larne 22. Their efforts were rewarded when Paul Hamilton stretched to ground the ball over the line and this time the conversion was successful to give the Dee a 12-10 lead. As the Dee pushed to extend their lead before half time a promising move broke down when the Larne centre intercepted a pass on the halfway line and galloped away to score under the posts. The successful kick gave Larne a 17-12 lead at half-time.

The halftime team talk began with the assistant Coach taking the words right out the Coach’s mouth as he rallied the team for the second forty minutes. This encouragement seemed to work as after ten minutes they produced one of the best tries this season. Out-half Cooper made a break inside his own 22 and made 10 metres before off loading to Adam Alexander who then had a one -two with McGivern before slipping the ball to Robbie Ingham. The winger stepped inside the last defender and dived over between the posts to score an excellent team try. Cooper converted to put the Dee 19-17 in front. (converting two out of three ain’t bad). Larne went down to 14 men when a player went to the bin for a high tackle but Dee did not take advantage of this numerical advantage. In fact, Larne had their best spell of the match and tested the Dee’s defence on several occasions. The lead changed hands on the 65 minute mark when they slotted over a penalty to give them a one point lead. At this stage Larne were beginning to believe that a win was a possibility and their confidence was increasing by the minute. With 10 minutes to go Dee were fortunate not to concede a try when one of the Larne forwards knocked the ball on as he went over the line. Dee pushed hard to score in the last ten minutes but it wasn’t until the final minute of the game that the Dee managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat when Cooper calmly slotted over a penalty after Larne were penalised at a ruck.
So with a final score of 22-20 Dee move up to third in the league, however, they know that they will have to perform better in their upcoming games if they want to stay there.

The next match is at Donaldson Park on Saturday 29th January against Lurgan, 2.30 KO.