Clogher complete a third double in three seasons

CLOGHER Valley RFC men’s first XV completed a third double in as many seasons on Saturday when they defeated Ballymena 31-22 at Eaton Park to add the Bank of Ireland Ulster Senior Shield to their trophy cabinet.

Having already claimed the Energia All-Ireland League 2C crown a week earlier, Clogher went into Saturday’s final on a crest of a wave and full of confidence after another season of success, which has followed two All-Ireland Junior Cup, Ulster Junior Cup and Ulster Championship Division One title triumphs.

And against a team from two divisions above them and on Ballymena’s home patch, Clogher showed no fear, earning a deserved win over Andrew Hughes men thanks to tries from David Maxwell (2), Ewan Haire, Taine Haire and the unfortunate Aaron Dunwoody, who appeared to have broken his wrist in the closing stages of the match. He was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital for treatment.

With the wind at their backs in the first half, the Valley men attempted to build a head of steam, which they did when Dunwoody opened the scoring, converted by Maxwell. But Ballymena struck back through an unconverted Connor Smyth try, which came similarly to Clogher’s opener, off the back of a maul.

But the Tyrone side struck back in style with Maxwell darting through a gap in the defence before converting his own try and he then struck again, capitalising on a dropped ball in the Ballymena midfield to make it 5-19.

Adam Lamont then pulled another five points back for Ballymena, but once more the visitors responded in style to end the first half when Ewan Haire crossed the whitewash and when Maxwell converted it was 10-26 at the break.

Even with a 16 point advantage at the interval, Clogher were keen to guard against complacency as they knew the home side, with the wind at their backs in the second half, would be looking for blood.

Initially it looked like they were in for a tough 40 minutes as Ballymena scored a converted try to bring them to within nine points but Clogher, as they did in the first half, responded in style, with Taine Haire increasing their lead back to 14 points with their fifth try of the game.

And while Ballymena did score another unconverted touchdown, they were unable to cause the resolute Valley defence too many headaches.

“It’s probably as good as we played all season, that second half,” Clogher head coach Stephen Bothwell beamed. “We played with the wind in the first half so we knew we would have to dog it out in the second. And then they scored pretty early in the second half and we thought ‘here we go’ but the boys hung in really well.

“It was fantastic and you want to hope that towards the end of the season you are playing better because you’ve been training them all year, so it was lovely to get that result and to come down to Ballymena and beat them on their own patch where they win a lot of games, I’m delighted.”