ENNISKILLEN II ...................... 25
BALLYMENA IV ....................... 10
Enniskillen Seconds took a step closer to promotion and a league title with a hard-fought win over the second placed team, ending Ballymena's hopes in the process. The win was all the more impressive given that they had been reduced to 14 men with barely two minutes played.
Stuart Bradshaw, returning from a hamstring injury, was clearly in distress at the first ruck and was forced to take his leave of the game. Enniskillen fought gamely and despite some dubious interpretation of the scrummage laws by the referee, managed to pull off the win.
Ballymena were the first to threaten, but excellent defence by 'Skins forwards kept out the visitors' allegedly much vaunted driving mauls twice inside ten minutes before Neal Carleton gave the home side the lead after 14 minutes.
Enniskillen were recycling the ball efficiently and worked their way into the visitors' "22" where Carleton cut inside his opposite number to score a try, which he himself converted.
Ballymena went on the attack direct from the kick-off but the defence, led by big hits from Felix Quigley and then Kyle Graydon held firm, before Enniskillen got their second score. With 24 minutes gone, a superb blindside break looked to have put Ally Duncan in the clear, but a last ditch tackle saw him forced into touch a metre shy.
Enniskillen secured possession following the lineout and play shifted quickly from right to left. Gordy White stepped inside, beating the first tackle and back row forward Gary Hall was on hand to take the offload and score in the corner.
Enniskillen were running rampant and came close to adding further scores. First, a sweeping move involving most of the backline plus Graydon, Hall and Richie Crawford almost broke the line on half-an-hour and then White was just beaten to the touchdown following a "grubber" kick into the corner.
Ballymena were to grab the last score of the half and from Enniskillen's viewpoint it was a soft try conceded. The forwards stole possession with some excellent work on their own "22" but the clearing kick was charged down and the left winger cantered home for an unconverted try in the corner in the 40th minute, leaving the half-time lead 12–5.
Enniskillen did not get the start to the second half that they would have discussed at half-time, when Ballymena scored with just over a minute on the clock. Five metres from their own line, Enniskillen lost a lineout and the Ballymena forwards drove over the line.
On a day when international referees were relying on the video reply the unsighted referee gave the decision to award the score without such a luxury. The try went unconverted but the lead was reduced to just two points.
Enniskillen then woke up to their task and some excellent support play again from the back row and Quigley and Crawford in particular, and offloading in the tackle saw play move quickly downfield following the restart, ending with a penalty opportunity, which Carleton took gratefully to extend the score to 15–10.
Ballymena then had two penalty chances missed and sandwiched between them Enniskillen had to mount another goalline stand to thwart the visiting forwards. Kyle Graydon was playing like a man possessed and was more than making up for Enniskillen's one-man deficit, with some tremendous tackling and covering possibly every blade of grass in doing so.
The tide swung back in Enniskillen's favour after 25 minutes, when Carleton intercepted a pass inside his own "22", and took off up the field.
With the line at his mercy, he simply ran out of gas with the covering winger catching him a few metres short. The ball was recycled to Colin McGlone, the first man there, and Duncan was then on hand to score under the bar.
Bizarrely, as Carleton was preparing to take the conversion, he was deemed to have moved prior to kicking and the referee allowed the charging Ballymena forwards to clear. From the sideline, it looked dubious to say the least, with the only movement seeing his heavy breathing after his exertions of running almost the length of the field.
Ballymena huffed and puffed from then on with most of the play restricted to the middle third of the field. Again, probable man-of-the-match Kyle Graydon put anyone in a black shirt with the ball, and some without, on his backside ably assisted by his 13 team-mates, not allowing Ballymena any chance of a comeback.
The scoring was not finished and with four minutes of injury time played, McGlone cut through a retreating Ballymena defence to add the fourth try much to the delight of the supporters in the "shed", leaving the final score 25–10.
Enniskillen are now within touching distance of the league title, and have two home matches to come in the next fortnight. Complacency is possibly the only thing that can stop them from achieving their goal, but no doubt the coaching team and captain will make sure in training that this is not allowed to happen.
