Campaign is off to a winning start

LURGAN U15’s got their league campaign off to a winning start on Saturday against Newry, with a hard fought 37-15 win.

From the early exchanges it was obvious the match was going to be a very physical contest, with Lurgan finding it difficult to deal with a much taller and heavier Newry team.

Despite this, it was Lurgan who took the lead through Curtis Doak, who picked up from the base of the scrum and powered his way over the Newry line.

After some exerted pressure on the Lurgan line, Newry deservedly drew level after some good driving by their forwards.

The scores remained level until five minutes before half time, when against the run of play Lurgan scored their second try. Curtis Doak made the initial break before passing to Conor Brady who was tackled into touch just short of the Newry line. From the resulting line-out, Lurgan managed to turn the ball over, which allowed Cailin Webb to touch down, giving Lurgan a narrow 10-5 half-time lead.

Lurgan began the second half in a more determined frame of mind, and were rewarded a penalty after some aggressive defensive pressure at a Newry line-out. Curtis Doak took a quick tap and powered his way past several Newry tacklers to score his second try of the game.

This score, however, was soon cancelled out. Immediately from the re-start Lurgan failed to field the re-start kick and conceded a very soft score to reduce their lead to five points.

This mistake seemed to spur on the Lurgan team, and for the next 15 minutes they dominated both territory and possession as they intensified their efforts in both defence and attack, with Lurgan captain Jonny Good leading by example.

After putting together several phases of play, the ball was passed to Jack Hanna who outpaced the Newry defence to score a well deserved try.

The next score followed shortly afterwards, and was undoubtedly the score of the match.

Curtis Doak collected the ball on his own line and skilfully evaded several Newry tacklers before sprinting the length of the pitch to touch down in the corner to secure his hat-trick, and crown a man-of-the match performance.

Jack Hanna scored his second try following several phases of play by the Lurgan forwards, before Jamie Hunter scored Lurgan’s final try, after reacting quickly to a Newry forced error. Cailin Webb added the conversion.

To their credit Newry played to the final whistle and were rewarded a consolation try in the final minute to leave the final score 37-15 in favour of Lurgan.