Clogher young-guns claim Ulster crown

CLOGHER Valley U16s faced Ophir in the final of the Ulster Regional League competition at The Cran on Saturday and came out convincing winners 24-7.

The success came on the back of the team’s reinstatement to the competition after their semi-final opponents Malone were kicked out by Ulster Branch for allowing an unregistered and unqualified club memeber officiate that match.

The Clogher under-16s were beaten 8-7 by Malone in that last four encounter but while the refereeing was very poor, the club accepted defeat. However, they then discovered that the individual wasn’t a qualified referee (not even an associate referee) and Ulster Rugby, on discovering this, over-turned the match and awarded the game to Clogher Valley.

Buoyed by their return to the competition and having enjoyed an extra week off following last weekend’s postponement of the final, which allowed them to savour the men’s first team’s All-Ireland Junior Cup success, the Valley under-16s made a bright start on Saturday.

They opened the scoring within minutes of the start with a well-worked try that Daniel Loane finished off.

Minutes later Shane Liggett drove through the middle of the Ophir defence to score under the posts, which was converted by Logan Gowdy to lead 12-0.

Ten minutes later Liggett doubled his scoring tally as he bounced Ophir players out of his path to get the ball down between the posts. Gowdy added the extras for the Valley to lead 19-0.

As the half came to an end Daniel Loane dived over to score in the corner after the Valley had put the ball through numerous hands to get the ball to the wing. Half-time had the Valley winning 24-0.

The second half was not the walkover the Valley players thought they would have and for long periods Ophir had control of the ball, but struggled to get over the line.

It wasn’t until the last few minutes of the game did the visitors score to take the bad look from the scoreline.