Costly cards at Midleton

Looking fresh from having travelled the long journey to Cork the night before, a largely similar Bangor side that defeated Sundays Well last Saturday ran out in perfect playing conditions at Midleton. The main change was in the kicking department with Rhys Larmour taking over at out half from the unavailable Oscar Yandall. Bangor got the game started and looked sharp from the outset. Early pressure soon yielded the first kicking opportunity for Larmour with a penalty in front of the Midleton posts and just on the twenty two metre line. Despite the swirling breeze, he confidently converted the kick to put Bangor ahead by 0-3 after just 7 minutes.

Bangor continued their good attacking play, keeping the home side pinned down inside their own half. As Midleton tried to take play into the Bangor half, a turnover and break by Logan Norman split the home defence. Although eventually tackled, he managed to offload to Mark Widdowson who took the attack on towards the Midleton line. Desperate defending held Bangor at bay, but after several patient phases, it was Andrew Jackson who managed to get over the line for Bangor’s opening try. With Larmour adding the conversion, Bangor were now 0-10 ahead and looking as though more was to come.

However, Bangor completely mishandled the restart which immediately put them on the back foot and marked a turning point in the game. As they scrambled to recover the situation, Midleton regained possession and charged forward in attack. Apparently shocked into action by Bangor’s strong start, Midleton started to play with more purpose and composure. Within minutes they had won a penalty from a late Bangor tackle, but the kick at goal by the usually dependable Stuart Lee drifted wide of the posts and Bangor were thankful to have been let off on this occasion.

Unfortunately that was the limit of Bangor’s good fortune as, just 5 minutes later, a high tackle by David Bradford resulted in a yellow card, and the visitors were now reduced to 14 men. His absence proved costly as Midleton stretched Bangor’s defensive line with Rian Hogan touching down in the right hand corner. Again, Lee’s kick was unsuccessful, but the home side were now on the scoreboard at 5-10, and were looking dangerous. A few minutes later, a poor Bangor lineout was stolen by Midleton who then moved the ball across to the left hand side before centre Danny Murray scored their second try, this time closer to the posts. The easier conversion was kicked by Lee to put his side ahead for the first time by 12-10.

Although soon afterwards Bangor were back to full strength again, the damage had been done, and now the target was to stem the flow of points until half time, when they could regroup and assess how best to respond. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case, as Midleton snatched their third try in the closing minutes of the first half when wing forward Rob Carey charged over following a 5 metre scrum. With the half time score now 19-10, Bangor now had a lot to do if they were to avoid leaving Midleton empty-handed.

One can only guess as to what coach Tom Rock gave his players in the half time huddle but, as Midleton got the second half underway, it looked like Bangor had found a missing gear. Their response came after 9 minutes of the restart when a turnover and break by Phil Whyte created the platform for Bangor to swing the ball wide to Nathan Graham who finished off the well-executed back line move with a try in the right hand corner. The tricky conversion was missed by Larmour, but Bangor had somehow got themselves back into the game at 19-15, with plenty of time left on the clock.

The following 15 minutes were a tense affair with Midleton dominating possession and Bangor struggling to find any telling response. Then, on 24 minutes, the game turned on another yellow card. Unfortunately the incident didn’t fall in Bangor’s favour, despite a tackle across the throat of Charlie Clegg that could have gone against the home side. Instead, it was the following ruck that saw Bangor’s Adam McCusker unceremoniously remove his opposite Midleton player and, with it, his yellow card for the offence. Once again Bangor found themselves down to 14 men and now under relentless pressure as Midleton hunted down their bonus point try. Bangor looked to have weathered the storm but, with just a minute of McCusker’s penalty remaining, Midleton barged their way over through prop Bryan Moore to not only secure their try scoring bonus point but also remove Bangor from losing point territory.

In the 7 minutes of playing time that remained, Bangor fought hard to try and salvage something from an otherwise poor performance. Promising breaks by Ali Lockhart and Andrew Jackson came to nothing and, despite forcing their way to the Midleton line, Bangor just weren’t able to finish off the last few important metres. In the end, Bangor had given themselves too much to do and, as the final whistle arrived, they can only reflect on where it had gone wrong and, more importantly, how they are to respond if they are to return to winning ways when they face newly promoted Clonmel next weekend.