Bruff Rugby Football Club

With warnings about 6 degrees below in the twenty four hours before the game but a forecast which maintained that a big thaw would take place , we travelled in hope that the game would take place but with a sense of trepidation.

The game itself started with Bruff commencing very strongly taking charge of things up front and defending excellently it took all of fourteen minutes before Bruff opened their acocunts with a Brian Cahill Penalty, but despite dominating much of the exchanges during the first half, after a torrid start in the scrums, Turnovers of the ball in the ruck at crucial times and lack of penetration in attack meant that the score remained at 3-0 until the turnaround.

The second half kicked off with Bruff kicking off much as the first half finished but Ballymena were the first to get on the scoreboard with a penalty to level matters and then two line breaks, the first by the Ballymena Number three gave Ballymena a break up the centre to give the offload to Centre Luke Marshall to touch down, and convert the two pointer directly afterwards. A second missed tackle five minutes later gave lock Andrew Kerr the second try and again Marshall added the extras to give them a fourteen point lead.

This served to stiffen the Bruff defence but despite a couple of attempts including two Pushover scrums,  followed by the binning of the Ballymena tighthead for another before turning over the ball, Bruff could only manage a consolation try right at the death, Player-coach Cathal O’Regan, Cahill missing with the bonus point conversion from away on the right across the face of the stiff breeze.

The weekends result didn’t affect the bottom six positions in the league table but there has been some re-arranging of the top four fighting for promotion.

On another cold dour day in Glenina (this is not a reflection on the warm welcome we received, it just seems to happen every time we visit) , both sides suffered from a multitude of errors with ball and bodies slipping in the mud.

Galwegians were first off the mark courtesy of a try from Wing forward Ivan Muldoon, but it took twenty five minutes for the try to come, although Bruff were lucky not to have been six points down at this stage as young Out-half Tadhg Leader had been unlucky with the boot on two occasions in kickable positions. Failing to add the extras the score remained five nothing right until half time despite the increasing pressure from the visitors and by the time the break came Galwegians were in dire need of relief from the pressure.

The second half began as the first ended and Bruff were rewarded for their hard work ten minutes into the second half with a well worked try finished off by Paddy Clery on the left hand side to level the scores. Brian Cahill fell just short with the conversion from way over on the left hand side and it was game on. Galwegians got relief time and again courtesy of the whistle at vital stages of Bruff pressure and with a nice break finished off by Out-half Leader on 68 minutes, they scrambled a five point lead again. Bruff seemed to just ramp up the defensive pressure and were able to beat back the Galwegians onslaught before turning the screw, but despite a fantastic last ten minutes where the didn’t leave the Galwegians 22, they just could not get a try. Denied twice over the line, the first time after a nice slide in from five meters by Brian Cahill and the second time deemed to be held up eight minutes into injury time before the referee blew for no-time and the visitors had to be content with  a losing bonus. The weekend’s games do not change any of the lineout of the bottom half of the league and next up we have a tough away game to Ballymena at Eaton Park next Saturday.