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ROYAL School Dungannon’s rugby first XV look guaranteed for a place in the last-16 of the Danske Bank Schools Cup proper after they edged out Portadown College by two points on Saturday.
That 16-14 away win leaves them top of Group C on 14 points, four ahead of their opponents, who have no games left and the same in front of Banbridge who they entertain tomorrow (Saturday) in their final pool game of the campaign, while Bangor Academy have no points and Dalriada seven with one game remaining.
It means, even if David Riddles’ side lose to Banbridge they will progress as group runners-up but even after a less-than-perfect performance in Portadown, the Royal School’s head coach is looking at nothing more than victory this coming Saturday.
“We’re pretty much guaranteed to go through now, I don’t think we cannot go through now. But we’ll have to focus on doing things better next week and do things right,” he explained.
“The pressure is off but my expectation is still to go out and win and it’s to perform better than we did [on Saturday] and get rid of those mistakes.
“We need to go out and make a statement so we can say ‘we topped our group, we won every match, we’re here to continue on doing that as we get into the last-16’.
“For me, carry the momentum but fix the problems and don’t let complacency set in.”
The Royal School’s first XV secured a hard-fought 16-14 win away to Portadown College on Saturday when, despite twice receiving yellow cards during the second half, they held on for victory.
All points came from James Gibson, who delivered with a try, conversion, and penalty in the first half, followed by two more penalties in the second.
Portadown opened the scoring with a converted try and added a penalty try in the final 10 minutes, but RSD held on for the win. While pleased with the result and their determination with 14 men, Riddles was less-than-impressed by his side’s ability to get themselves into trouble on Saturday.
“It was a tight enough game,” Riddles acknowledged.
“They had a very strong maul, they made yards on us every time they did it.
“And they got a penalty try off that to make it 14-16 and we had got a yellow card at the start of the second half and another one at the end of the second half, so I’m absolutely delighted that they held on in those circumstances.
“But my assessment of it is that we were our own worst enemy. The penalty count was far superior against us than it was for the other team and it wasn’t anything to do with the refereeing.
“Our boys were under the pump a bit, taking chances they didn’t need to and got caught.”
