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League Match: Donaghadee 17 - 7 Limavady (25/03/00)

"LIMAVADY LOOK ORDINARY AT DONAGHADEE

Donaghadee kicked off against visitors, Limavady, with a slight wind favouring them. The Dee players well well aware that Limavady was the club to beat in Qualifying League II. They had played all season to this point and had only tasted defeat the once. This had been inflicted in the final of the Junior Cup by the very strong Ballymena II, who had also beaten Donaghadee in the same competition. Limavady were still in the Provincial Towns' Cup, and more importantly, arrived at the Dee as League leaders. Donaghadee pride dictated that they would not be leaving County Down with two easy points, or even a victory.

The Donaghadee hooker, Matt Duff, was "up" for the game as it was most probably his last home game before he returned home to Takapuna. He wanted it to be memorable, and as the game unfolded it appeared that his team-mates did too, possibly because some of these players retain unpleasant memories of defeat last season at the hands of Limavady.

Both teams did make some mistakes early on, clearance kicks from both sides did not reach the touchline, or worse, went straight to an opposition player. The backfield threes on both sides looked good because they were being offered great opportunities to catch the ball and attack with determination. The big difference between the teams at this stage of the match was that Donaghadee were stopping the Limavady counter-attacks more quickly than they were stopping the Dee runs. David McMinn, Simon Crowe and Jeff Allen were very secure in the midfield area, and no one came through. At least 80 per cent of the play in the first half was inside the Limavady half, and much of this was inside their "22".

After half an hour of good work the thought occurred that Donaghadee still had nothing to show for all their excellent work. The breeze was now ominously picking up, and the prospect of Derek McAleese, the Limavady outside-half, launching bombs after the interval was making the spectators anxious for something positive on the scoresheet before then.

This anxiety was soon eased when Donaghadee were awarded a penalty thirty metres out and fifteen metres from touch, and Paul Blewitt struck it smartly between the sticks for a slender, but crucial, 3-0 lead. Conor Hamilton enjoyed a stirring run from a poor touch kick, and John Anderson finished off a couple of good moves across the backline - but only into touch, rather than all the way. However, the line-out resulting from one of these runs then was followed by a scrum for a Limavady knock-on. Here Donaghadee showed their visitors that they could also dish out what they had had to take last year up at Limavady, when they somehow turned their scrum into a twenty-five man shove (well it looked like it) and crashed the ball over for what appeared to be an amazingly easy try. Paul's safe conversion now gave Donaghadee a 10 point lead - satisfying but perhaps not satisfactory. When the referee blew for half-time a little later there were many people wondering if the margin was enough.

Somewhere around this time the man from Auckland was putting it to his colleagues that the way they put it in his country on such occasions was that a team would adopt the stance that they were in "our house", and that nobody messes them around there. Clearly the seeds of this notion fell on fertile ground, because from the turn-round on the Donaghadee commitment and tackle count were doubly awesome. When presented with the opportunities, and occasionally even when they were not, the Dee forwards began making a series of runs in close to the set pieces, rucks and mauls. None were achieving total breakthroughs, but then they are not expected to, but they were gaining chunks of territory each time. With Duff, Aaron Martin, Ian Welch and Scott English particularly prominent, Donaghadee were in a sense throwing down the gauntlet to Limavady.

To their credit, and to no one's surprise, the men in black accepted the challenge. Abandoning their attempts to provoke mistakes among the Donaghadee backs now that they recognised that these errors simply were not happening, the Limavady forwards began to play copy-cat with hard runs in close. The difference was that the Dee forwards held their line better than Limavady did. These boys are now seasoned troops. They know where attacks come from and they know how to bring them to a halt. Will Hopes has never tackled better, or more often. Nigel Forsythe, Gary Fleming, Brian McCracken and the rest of the players repeatedly tackled anything Limavady threw at them. Time and time again the waves of black came at Donaghadee, but every time they were repulsed.

This might sound as though the backs were relaxing somewhere on their deck chairs, but all of them were playing their parts too. Virtually every tackle was being made, and at every opportunity Andy Monson was probing with little runs, chipping the ball through gaps and feeding his outside half to supply ball to the threequarters. Frustration began to creep into Limavady's game. Almost inevitably this led to a mistake, and a catastrophic one, for them.

Knowing that the Donaghadee drift defence had his opposite number covered on the outside, John Anderson stepped inside at the critical moment as the Limavady outside centre passed to his left wing, and received a perfect pass - at speed. John did what any wing does in those circumstances, and went straight for his opponents' line. In a second it was obvious that he could never be caught. This was so obviously a clinching score that the Dee supporters were already celebrating even before John's premature nonchalance as he approached the goal line. The successful kick now gave Limavady 17 points to catch up, and the clock gave them no chance to do so.

McAleese tried too hard at two penalty goal attempts and the Limavady score stubbornly remained at nil. Donaghadee's discipline was as good as their tackling, so Limavady got no more penalty chances. To their credit, they never stopped battering the thin red and green line. But it held, and it held and it held. They had long forgotten the exact number of tackles put in, but everyone remained enthralled by the vigour and determination of them. Just as many spectators were looking at their watches and wondering if Donaghadee could possibly restrict Limavady to nil, the visitors produced their best attack of the day, suddenly switching from a series of close-in rushes to a well-executed back move wide to their right. Slick transfer of the ball along the line opened a tiny gap in the now tired defence and gave Limavady a try under the posts.

When the referee blew for the finish as the conversion kick went over, many were appreciative of the try, but also sympathetic for Donaghadee that they had held their house secure for seventy-nine minutes only to have their opposition make this one small breach right on the blow. The score did do something positive, in that it reminded Donaghadee just how dangerous Limavady can be when given only half a chance. This lesson may yet prove invaluable when the return fixture is played in a few weeks."