By 
ROYAL School Dungannon’s rugby first XV suffered a narrow 10-12 defeat to their near neighbours, Rainey Endowed, at The Armstrong Field in the last-16 of the Danske Bank Schools Cup on Saturday morning.
A try from captain, Blake Redmond, allied to a conversion and penalty from the boot of his vice-captain James Gibson had given David Riddles men a 10-7 lead at the interval.
However, with the wind at their backs, Rainey were able to grab a telling unconverted try in the second period, while simultaneously keeping Dungannon at bay, to edge their hosts out of the competition.
While delighted by his side’s efforts throughout, RSD head coach Riddles, felt the concession of a first half try proved pivotal in the end.
“It was a really, really good game of rugby, tightly fought,” he said. “There was a wind blowing one way throughout the match, diagonally across the pitch, but we had it in the first half and led 10-7 and they scored in the second half, while we just couldn’t get out of our half unfortunately.
“Our ‘D’ was impressive at times. They were probably a bit bigger than us, but they managed to get only one try with the wind at their backs.
“They had a good flyhalf who just pinned us back into our corner, so it was kicking for no gain. No matter what we tried to do, the ball just kept staying between the halfway line and our 22. It was just one of those things that our ‘D’ was good and their ‘D’ was good and it just came down to a flash of a moment and really, the difference between us and them was, we knew they were going to maul lineouts and the first lineout we had against them was inside our 22 and they mauled it, we didn’t defend it very well and they walked it in. And that’s probably the difference because after that they mauled every lineout and we defended it, they didn’t make ground, but they just caught us cold on the first one and at the end of the day, there’s your two points of difference.”
RSD can now look forward to taking on Belfast Royal Academy away in the quarter-final of the Shield following their exit from the Cup and Riddles believes his side can progress if they produce similar standards of play to what he’s witnessed since joining the school during the autumn.
“I’m extremely proud of the defensive effort they put in, both in the first and the second half,” he beamed. “They literally fought tooth and nail until the end and in terms of the rugby played, the standard was phenomenal. Nobody can be disappointed with what happened. We’re obviously disappointed to be on the wrong side of the scoreboard but it gives us a good standing now going into the subsidiary shield now.
“It leaves us that there’s still competitive rugby to be played and having stepped into this from October, the performance that we came out with today, I can’t say it’s anything to do with me, it’s definitely the effort the boys put in and going from maybe not winning a game in the group stage last year to losing by two points in the last-16 of the Schools Cup, they have to hold their heads up.
“They have to be proud, take that forward and kick that on because that’s the standard and if you can do that again in the Shield, you have the chance to do something great there.”
