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OMAGH Accies continued their impressive post-Christmas run of form on Saturday when they produced a dominant second half performance to defeat Randalstown 52-7 at Thomas Mellon Playing Fields to improve their chances of claiming a top four finish in Ulster Championship 1.
Saturday’s win, which came thanks to tries from Matthew Eccles (3), Ryan Mitchell (2), Scott Barr, David Braden and captain, Matthew Clyde, is their sixth victory on the bounce in all competitions and leaves Stewart McCain’s side fourth in the table.
“We’re chasing that top four,” Clyde admitted.
““I know there are other teams with games in-hand so the table’s a bit hard to work out, but we’re just trying to improve each week. Our performance probably dipped in the first half but we went about our business in the second half much better, kicked on, scored some nice tries, a lot of tries again, which is pleasing.”
Things didn’t go entirely to plan during the first half, when the Accies struggled to find top gear. However, they still manufactured a lead thanks to tries from Eccles and Barr, one of which was converted by Scott Elliott before Randalstown pulled one back before the break to leave it 12-7 at the interval.
“It was a tight game first half but we just felt we weren’t performing at our best,” Clyde acknowledged. “Randalstown had good cover defence and had chances to get ahead of us but we had some last man tackles to stop them. We just knew the first half performance wasn’t pleasing and we wanted to push through in the second half.”
The second half was a different story, however, as Omagh ran rampant to run out comfortable winners after Braden, Clyde, Mitchell (twice) and Eccles (twice) all scored again, with the latter completing a hat-trick for the second match in a row, having achieved the same feat at Cooke last time out.
And Clyde is adamant that he and his team-mates will need more of their second half performance than their first when they travel to Ballymoney this coming Saturday.
“We were able to push through in the second half and score some nice tries,” Clyde beamed.
“It’s job done but we will definitely want to be improving for next week, going to Ballymoney, which will be a tough trip.”
Meanwhile, Omagh Accies also have a Towns Cup semi-final to look forward to at the start of April when they entertain nearest neighbours, Enniskillen.
