Donaghadee entertained Randalstown at Donaldson Park in what was the first league meeting between the two sides in some years.

With the Dee once again missing regulars due to injury and unavailability it gave opportunities to Kyle Morrow coming back from injury, Danny McBride coming in at scrum half and the exciting young prospect‎ Ally Deering making his debut.

In what was a perfect day for rugby Randalstown got off to a flying start when, in the third minute, a charged down kick was quickly fielded and finished off with a try. As the Dee struggled to come to terms with this early set back a high ball from the Randalstown No. 10 was allowed to bounce out wide and the visiting winger collected to finish and the extras added.

With the home team now losing Sam Ingham to injury, being replaced by Deering , they started to get hands on the ball only for Randalstown to regain possession and attack on the Dee’s right wing to score their third try.

To their credit Donaghadee started to put together some phases and after some good work by both forwards and backs they had made it into Randalstown’s 22 wide on the left where young Deering showed great strength to finish well. The final stages of the half finished with neither team threatening to score. Half time 5-17

As with the end of the first half for the first 15 minutes of the second period no one had the upper hand. With the Dee now trying to push hard to get on terms playing catch-up rugby Randalstown impressively stepped up the pace and found space easily compounding Donaghadee’s predicament with a 15 minute spell in which they to scored 4 more tries - all of which were converted.

Unfortunately, and adding to the Dee’s already extensive injury list, Conn Crawford picked up a bad ankle injury late on in the game. Not a good day for Donaghadee with the plethora of personnel changes affecting performance but, on the plus side, an impressive debut from Deering who will undoubtedly prove to be a major asset to the Club for many years to come.

The Dee now move on to Enniskillen next week which is never an easy place to go but with hard work on the training paddock during the incoming the team will be keen to overcome this setback and return to winning ways.