By 
OMAGH Academy booked their place in the last eight of the Medallion Shield in some style on Saturday when they ousted Rainey by 31-7 at Campsie Playing Fields.
A nervy start from Darren McGuigan’s lads saw them trail 5-7 at the interval against the Magherafelt-based outfit, who are coached by Omagh’s former head of PE, Ross Hunter.
There was no sign of panic at that stage, as the players, as well as the coaching staff, knew where things had gone wrong during the opening period.
“It was one of those, the occasion got to them [at the start] and there were a few mistakes but they turned it around second half,” McGuigan beamed.
“The guys knew that they probably didn’t play in the right parts of the pitch [during the first half], there were a couple of little mistakes and we let them in. It was a case of trying to calm each other down and we tried to turn it round mentally.”
And turn it round they certainly did in the second half s the shackles were thrown off by the Academy team who played to their potential, adding to Angus Callion’s first half score through tries from Joshua Summerville, Callion again and Charlie Wilson, while Logan Crosbie kicked two conversions and they earned a penalty try too to ease into the quarter-finals in the end.
“[In the second half] we were playing down in towards the changing rooms, [so the plan was to] kick into the corners, turn them and we did all that but then we got our hands on the ball and got it out wide, getting our big runners on it.,” McGuigan observed.
“Our strong men did the damage and we got a couple of breakaway tries. It was all one-way traffic for the last 25 minutes.”
As well as coming through the tie with victory in some style at the end, the Academy lads also came through it unscathed with no injuries so they can now look forward to the quarter-final draw with plenty of anticipation and excitement.
