By 
OMAGH Academy’s rugby first XV boosted their chances of making it through to the knockout stages of the Danske Bank Schools Cup when they claimed a gutsy try-scoring bonus point victory at Belfast High School in Group A on Saturday.
Having lost their opening encounter at pool favourites, Ballyclare High School, Ryan Mitchell’s men bounced back in style with a bonus point success at home over Regent House before achieving a similar feat on the shores of Belfast Lough at the weekend.
Those results have left the Academy lads on the brink of making it through to the knockout stage proper, with victory in their remaining fixture, at home over Bangor Grammar lining up to be, potentially, a winner takes all clash – although Regent’s victory over Ballyclare on Saturday has made things even more interesting over the final two weekends of the group stage.
To earn the chance of retaining the possibility of progressing, Omagh first had to take care of Belfast High, which they did in some style on Saturday, digging deep and showing character when needed in order to come back from the brink before sealing victory thanks to an Isaac Crawford Brace, a key score from Sammy Braden and a touchdown from Sam Harper, who also kicked two conversions.
Mitchell’s men opened proceedings on the front foot, surging into a 10-8 lead thanks to two unconverted tries before their hosts showed their mettle in the second half.
Belfast High knew anything other than victory would end their hopes of progressing and they showed hunger and desire to ensure that wouldn’t happen by registering two converted scores after the break to come back after Omagh extended their advantage to 17-8 to engineer a 22-17 lead.
But with the clock ticking down, Omagh launched a telling attack in the final 10 minutes which resulted in Braden dotting down and Harper knocking over the vital conversion to seal a narrow 24-22 victory to leave them within touching distance of the knockout phase of the prestigious competition.
“Belfast High School certainly set their stall out, came at us and caused us plenty of problems,” Mitchell observed. “They came back at us [in the second half] and led 22-17 going into the last 10, so we needed a bit of character at that stage, under pressure, and the boys showed good composure to get back into it and score under the posts and kick the points to win 24-22.”
While pleased with facets of his team’s play at Belfast High School on Saturday, Mitchell admits there is still plenty of work for his players to do between now and the Bangor clash on November 29th when, after welcoming skipper Harry McIlwaine and Matthew McClung back to action at the weekend, he’s anticipating a fully fit squad to be at his disposal.
“The guys gave a decent account of themselves at times,” he observed. “Little errors crept in, which was frustrating, but we have a couple more fixtures before Bangor when we play Limavady and Wallace over the next couple of weeks.
“Hopefully we’ll tighten things up for Bangor at home at the end of the month when we’ll have plenty of competition for places and everyone fighting for shirts.
