With a full complement of teams taking to the field on Saturday, there was little scope for the coaches to rest any players in advance of next week’s challenge at Clonmel in the All Ireland Junior Cup. However, the few changes that were made were no strangers to the team and the overall make-up of the side looked comfortingly familiar.

Playing with a stiff breeze blowing straight down the pitch, Bangor kicked off towards a youthful Banbridge side. Within 5 minutes, a simple but well-executed move led to the first score. From a Bangor scrum on the right hand side of the pitch, Curtis Stewart at Number 8 picked up and passed to Jamie Ball at scrum half. From there, a couple of quick and well-timed passes from Ball to Mike Aspley and then to Mark Widdowson, found the winger in more space then he has been used to, providing a fairly easy run in to score in the left hand corner.

Although Bangor enjoyed long spells of possession in their opponent’s half, a mixture of solid defending and unforced errors combined to thwart a number of good scoring opportunities. Several stoppages for injury also contributed to a lack of fluency and momentum. After 14 minutes, Bangor finally stretched their lead to 0-8 with a penalty following a dangerous Banbridge tackle. Banbridge then replied within minutes with a penalty of their own, before another Neil Cuthbertson kick restored the lead by 3-11.

The remainder of the first half was a further mixture of stoppages and uneven play. As the game approached half time, it was beginning to look like Bangor’s lead may not be enough when the sides turned around and Banbridge would have the wind at their backs. However, as the game entered the final minute of the first half, Bangor maintained their concentration and, from a turn-over ball won at a ruck on the right hand side, the backs once again got the ball to Widdowson who this time had to side-step the defence before scoring in the left hand corner. The difficult touchline conversion attempt was missed, but the half time score was now a slightly more comfortable 3-16.

Banbridge got the second half underway, but with less wind advantage than had been evident earlier. With Bangor’s running play depending less on kicking for position, they soon worked their way back into Banbridge territory. With confidence building, a scrum was chosen for an early Bangor penalty close to the Banbridge line. By now, Bangor had the upper hand in the piece, and this was evident again when Stewart controlled the ball at the back of scrum as it marched towards the Banbridge line before finally picking it up and diving over for a try under the posts. With Cuthbertson’s kick, the score moved on to 3-23, with 10 minutes gone.

Just another 5 minutes had been played when good off-loading in the centre of the pitch saw the ball come to Adam McCusker who set off down the right wing. Although tap-tackled, he managed to get quickly back on his feet and stretch over to score in the corner. The kick was missed, but Bangor were now looking to be in control and well ahead by 3-28.
A lapse in concentration another 5 minutes later, allowed the home side to benefit from a quickly taken tap penalty inside Bangor’s twenty two, reducing Bangor’s lead to 10-28. However, this simply galvanised Bangor into correcting their mistake and going on to close out the game.

Good interplay between the forwards had been evident throughout the game, and this was rewarded Stewart, Ryan Latimer and James Henly combined to provide Henley with the final move that saw him touch down under the Banbridge posts. Then Chris Morgan produced a burst of speed that split the tiring Banbridge defence and score under the posts. Finally, a jinking run by Cuthbertson down the right hand wing left several Banbridge players in his wake, before capping an excellent individual performance by again touching down under the posts. With the added conversions for each of these tries being kicked by Cuthbertson, the final score had leapt to a convincing 10-49, securing Bangor a place in the quarter finals to be played in 3 weeks’ time.

However before that, Bangor can now look forward with confidence to next week’s difficult fixture at Clonmel in the first round of the prestigious All Ireland Junior Cup.

Bangor side: O McIlmurry, A Jackson, P Whyte, A Rushe, G Irvine, R Latimer, J Clegg (c), C Stewart, J Ball, K Rossan, M Widdowson, M Aspley, C Morgan, N Cuthbertson, A McCusker

Subs: J Henley, P Nicol

Bangor scores: M Widdowson (2T), N Cuthbertson (1T, 2P, 4C), C Stewart (1T), A McCusker (1T), J Henly (1T), C Morgan (1T)