Playing with the wind at their backs, a strong Omagh side got this Powerade Towns Cup semi-final underway. Despite some positional changes in the Bangor line-up, the home side looked composed and secure as Omagh enjoyed the opening period of possession. After 11 minutes of play, a Bangor turnover in the centre of the pitch was then moved to Mark Widdowson who set off on a run down the left wing. Having taken play into the Omagh twenty two, he then passed inside to Jason Morgan who cut through to score to the left of the Omagh posts. Neil Cuthbertson added the conversion to give Bangor an early 7-0 lead.

Bangor’s lead, however, was not to last long. Just 3 minutes later, a missed tackle by Bangor gave Omagh just enough room to capitalise and score towards the left hand side. Although the conversion was missed, Omagh had narrowed the gap to 7-5. Omagh continued to apply pressure to an unusually restrained Bangor side. Eventually, this pressure paid off when a rare gap in Bangor’s defence allowed Omagh to drift through and score under the posts. With the successful conversion, Omagh had now moved ahead by 7-12.

Minutes later, Omagh had an opportunity to extend their lead when they won a penalty, but the kick at goal was wide of the mark, and Bangor could breathe again. By contrast, when Bangor were awarded a penalty shortly afterwards, Cuthbertson successfully made the kick, bringing the score to 10-12. Not long after the Omagh restart, Bangor produced their best move of the first half when Jamie Clegg broke out from deep in his own half before passing to Ross McCloskey, who side-stepped the approaching tackler before passing to Cuthbertson on the wing. With nobody ahead of him, Cuthbertson sprinted away from the chasing defenders to score in the corner. The difficult touchline conversion was missed, but Bangor had their noses in front again by 15-12. In the closing minutes of the first half, both sides had further penalty opportunities, but neither were successfully converted.

Strong words were heard from the Bangor half-time huddle as captain Jamie Clegg demanded more from his players in the second half. Although the wind advantage would undoubtedly help, the players needed to reproduce the type of performance that has brought them so far this season. Things started pretty well, with Bangor keeping play inside the Omagh half and applying pressure through the forwards. This effort was rewarded with a straightforward penalty in front of the Omagh posts which Cuthbertson took with ease. Although now 6 points ahead, Bangor sought to keep the pressure on and were soon camped on Omagh’s 5 metre line. Despite losing a player to the sin bin, Omagh defended well and held off several attacking scrums from Bangor, before winning the turn-over and clearing their lines.

The frustration was evident both on and off the field of play, as time and again promising moves were spoiled at key moments by poor ball retention. However, after 24 minutes of the second half Bangor’s patience paid off when a good back line move saw the ball come to Widdowson on the left hand touchline, who managed to hold off the Omagh defender and touch down in the corner. The difficult conversion was excellently kicked by Cuthbertson, with the ball just going over after bouncing off the crossbar.

Omagh now had to throw everything into attack, knowing that they would need 2 converted tries to regain the lead. However, despite their best endeavours, they were unable to break through the Bangor defence that resolutely held their line and, although losing Darren Kelly to a yellow card, they closed out the remainder of the game to win by 25-12.

This was a much better Omagh performance than Bangor had maybe expected, but such is the nature of cup ties that the form book counts for little and anything can happen. Bangor will be relieved to have come through this difficult test with both the winning result and no further injury worries. They can now look forward to another trip to the Kingspan Stadium on Easter Monday when they will face Enniskillen in the final. However, before that there is unfinished league business to attend to, starting with a home game against a resurgent Cooke on Tuesday evening. The players need the continued excellent support from touchline as they navigate their way through a difficult schedule of fixtures in the pursuit of further success.

Bangor team: M Ferguson, C McEvoy, P Whyte, D Kelly, C Burton, M Weir, D Bradford, J Clegg (c), J Guthrie, G Millar, M Widdowson, J Morgan, M Aspley, N Cuthbertson, R McCloskey

Subs: O McIlmurray, D Caughey, P Dornan, M Thompson, R Armstrong

Bangor scorers: J Morgan (1T), N Cuthbertson (1T, 2C, 2P), M Widdowson (1T)