Bangor bounce back with bonus

As Bangor continue to develop their pool of players, it was a particular pleasure to see Ethan McGrogan and Corey Alexander make their senior debut having worked their way through the club’s mini and youth sections. It’s great to see how such commitment by both the players and their various coaches has nurtured their talent and ambition, and the club wishes them many more rewarding years ahead. There were yet more new faces making their first Upritchard Park start – Matt Bougoure and Stephen Moore in the back row and Harry Warren at inside centre – all exciting prospects for the season and adding more strength in depth for the senior squad. Omagh have always been tough opponents and, having overcome Belfast Harlequins in their last match, would be looking to build on that success against a Bangor side that had suffered defeat in their opening two games.

Bangor kicked off and looked sharp from the outset. Strong and direct running through the backs looked to have been finished off with a debut try for Harry Warren in the opening few minutes, but play was brought back for an earlier knock-on. However, this set the tone for Bangor and they displayed good sustained pressure, which soon resulted in a penalty which Gareth Millar converted to open the scoring and put Bangor into an early 3-0 lead. The Bangor forwards soon got into action when they secured a lineout just inside their own half before taking the rolling maul into Omagh’s twenty two. The attack was then taken on by the backs who quickly got the ball to Conor Scollan on the left wing, whose speed and strength saw him touch down in the corner for the try. The conversion attempt was unsuccessful, but Bangor were now 8-0 ahead at the end of the first quarter.

As is so often the case, this seemed to galvanise the Omagh men and, while Bangor had been effective earlier in halting their attacks, they soon capitalised on a defensive mix-up which allowed them to run through for an easy try under the Bangor posts. With the simple conversion, Omagh were now right back in the game at 8-7.

With the first half drawing to a close, Bangor were on the attack again. A well-placed cross-field kick by Millar found Scollan on the left hand touchline. Despite having Omagh defenders ahead of him, Scollan managed to shake off the tackles before diving over in the corner for a superbly taken try. With Millar adding the tricky conversion just as the whistle blew for half time, Bangor were now a little more comfortably ahead by 15-7.

Omagh got the second half underway and, in contrast to the first half, were quickly on the attack. Bangor’s earlier defensive short-comings were once again exposed when Omagh found another gap in Bangor’s line to give them their second try under Bangor’s posts, and narrow the scores to 15-14.

Bangor rose the challenge once again and worked hard to get an attacking lineout deep inside the Omagh twenty two. The ball was thrown short to Matt Bougoure who set off on a charge for the line. Although he was stopped just short of the line, the ball came back to James Leary who made the final push and scored just to the right of the Omagh posts. Millar successfully added the extras to put Bangor 25-14 ahead, with a quarter of the game left to play.

However, once again Bangor let their defence drop which allowed Omagh to strike back with another try, this time unconverted, which narrowed Bangor’s lead to 25-19. The game’s crazy see-saw progress continued from the restart. Although Omagh ran the ball back deep into Bangor’s half, a great counter-attack started by Danny Young and then taken on by Conor Scollan brought play right back into Omagh’s red zone. As the ball came to Millar in the centre on Omagh’s twenty two, a clever dummy left the Omagh players wrong-footed, allowing him to cut through for Bangor’s bonus point try under the Omagh posts. Converting his own try, Millar had now given Bangor a 32-19 lead, with just 10 minutes left to play.

But just when it looked like this score would close out the game, Omagh turned over another Bangor attack before good passing saw them once again break through the shaky defence for their bonus point try, and taking the score to 32-26.

Nerves were jangling among Bangor supporters as Omagh sensed they had the momentum to pull off an upset in the dying minutes. Bangor certainly put themselves under additional pressure when their desperate defending resulted in two yellow cards. Although now down to 13 men, and camped inside their own twenty two, Bangor somehow managed to hold firm, eventually winning a turn-over which allowed them to put the ball dead and breathe a sigh of relief as the whistle blew for full time.

This was a great game played between closely matched sides, but importantly for Bangor it marked the end of their losing streak, and renews confidence ahead of their final game in the Ulster Premier League at Belfast Harlequins next weekend. There’s still plenty of work to be done, particularly in the area of defence, but improvement week on week is a promising sign and, as yet more players join the playing ranks over the coming weeks, there is a much more positive outlook for the All Ireland League.