Lack of clinical edge costs Clogher at Hatrick Park

CLOGHER Valley’s promotion push stuttered at Hatrick Park in Magherafelt on Saturday when a failure to take scoring chances cost Stephen Bothwell’s men against a Rainey side who sealed the five points on offer with a 32-20 win.

On the day, scores in either half from Aaron Dunwoody and Jamie Allen and two conversions and two penalties from David Maxwell were all Clogher could muster but Valley head coach, Stephen Bothwell believes his side left more out there and, having watched his side fail to build on a half-time lead, he feels there are lessons to be learned before the reverse fixture on January 11th.

“We didn’t take our opportunities, which was frustrating,” Bothwell observed. “We got on the line several times but didn’t score and that was our downfall.

“There’s a slope on the pitch down here and there was a slight breeze so when we turned around I knew we would be up against it but I thought when we scored in the second half to push it out we had a really good opportunity to go on and win it but they scored almost immediately back, which was really annoying.

“We were probably the better team in big chunks of it but with the ball on the ground, they wanted it a bit more than we did, if I’m honest. They were probably fighting a bit more than us, a bit more dogged and that’s what swung it.

“Our scrum was on top of theirs, their lineout was probably on top of ours, but it was frustrating because we should have been putting them away and didn’t. We had our opportunities, the weather was good enough to play our rugby and the surface was good enough, but once the game tightened up, we tightened up and didn’t play enough.

“It’s something I spoke about during the week, so it’s maybe one of those learnings we have to see it and feel it before we actually do it.”

Clogher entertain Ballyclare at The Cran tomorrow (Saturday) in their penultimate Ulster Premiership Division Two fixture of the season knowing a victory is needed in their bid for the title.