Clogher earn hard-fought victory

CLOGHER Valley moved up one place in Energia All-Ireland League 2B into fourth after earning a hard-fought 12-7 victory at Sligo on Saturday.

Stephen Bothwell’s men looked as though they were cruising to victory after engineering a 12-0 half-time lead thanks to tries from Callum Smyton and Aaron Dunwoody along with one David Maxwell conversion.

But after letting Sligo off the hook shortly after the restart when they failed to capitalise on a couple of excursions into the home ‘22’, their hosts grew in confidence and with the elements now in their favour, they battled back into contention thanks to a Stewart Cruden try and conversion.

From that point on, the pressure was mainly on the Clogher line and by the final whistle Bothwell was happy to take the W and head for home before his side tackle Ballymena in the Ulster Premiership next weekend.

“We had a good first half with the wind and we did enough in the second half to get a couple more scores but we let them out of the 22 too easily. Then, they got their tails up, got a momentum swing after they scored and they got pressure on our scrum,” he observed.

“They finished with their tails up and us defending for our lives so it’s a case of take the four points and run because there will be a lot of teams will come here and won’t get the four points. And to get out of this block with nine points [having won 65-26 at home over Malahide last week] is fantastic, so we’ll worry about Ballymena next week and then turn our focus onto Skerries [at home on December 7].”