Although unusually playing on Ballyclare’s second pitch, and with the weather conditions much better than expected, the stage was evenly poised as Bangor kicked off this Kukri QL2 league game. The opening exchanges saw attacks from both sides, with neither being able to capitalise. It was just 10 minutes into the game when, on one such foray by Ballyclare, Dave Lynn stretched to make an important tackle but in doing so, dislocated his shoulder and had to be taken to hospital. With their Number 8 now gone and down to 14 men, Bangor regrouped and looked as though they might be able to cope with this loss. However, with just a further 8 minutes played, Chris Morris suffered a badly dislocated finger and was unable to continue. Although the outlook was bleak, Bangor dug deep and continued to frustrate the Ballyclare attack. With less than 10 minutes left in the first half, Ballyclare finally exploited an inevitable gap in Bangor’s defence to score to the right of the posts. The conversion was successful, making the score 7-0.

As the first half was drawing to a close, an incident worthy of ‘You’ve Been Framed’ brought a sense of levity to the proceedings. With Ballyclare on the attack and switching the direction of play from the back of a ruck, the referee suddenly found himself in the middle of play. The next thing he was on his back, having got caught up in Bangor’s defending tackles. However, any humour associated with this unfortunate accident, quickly descended into farce when the Bangor players were adjudged to have deliberately pushed the referee and a penalty was awarded to Ballyclare. The 3 points were gratefully taken, moving the score to 10-0. The protestations of the Bangor players continued, but this only resulted in a penalty restart to Ballyclare. This kick was missed, bringing the first half to an untidy close.

The Ballyclare players obviously benefited by the half-time talk by their coaching staff, as they now found ways of using their two-man advantage to create space and overlaps on most of their attacks. Within a short time, they had scored another two tries to now lead by 22-0, and were pushing for their bonus point try. Bangor, undeterred, stuck to their task and came back with Jason Morgan making a determined run to the Ballyclare line, only to be held up a few metres short. Good support from David Noble saw him gather Jason’s final pass, to score in the left hand corner. Although the difficult conversion was missed, Bangor now had points on the board and with 20 minutes to go, there was still plenty to play for.

However, any sense of optimism was snuffed out just 5 minutes later when Peter Corbett was yellow-carded for tackling without proper use of his arms. Ironically, this situation had arisen as a result of an identical Ballyclare tackle just moments before, which had gone unpunished and provided them with an unexpected advantage. Bangor had fought well with 13 men, but the loss of yet another player was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The gaps were just too big to fill, and with repeated three on one overlaps, Ballyclare were able to run in a further four tries to finish off the game with a 46-5 victory.

It is a well-known saying that what goes around comes around, and Bangor have benefited in earlier games this season through injuries suffered by opposing teams – it is a very tall order to compete and succeed with only 13 players. It was also obvious that a number of decisions didn’t go Bangor’s way either. However, although the loss of this game is undoubtedly a setback, the never-say-die attitude of the Bangor players while staring down the barrel of a big defeat, is to be applauded and it goes without saying that the return leg at Upritchard Park will be all the more appetising as a result. The Club wishes both Dave Lynn and Chris Morris a full and speedy recovery, and looks forward to seeing them back on the field of play soon. The players and coaching staff now have to put all this behind them and focus on another key game next weekend, when the last remaining unbeaten side in the league, UUC, come to Upritchard Park.

Bangor team : B Worthington, A Jackson, J Harrison, R Meeke , P Corbett, R McCausland (C), M Coey, D Lynn, H Millar, K Crossan, M Aspley, J Morgan, C Morris, D Noble, C Morgan

Bangor Scores: D Noble (1T)