Portadown 5th XV 7
Belfast Harlequins 5th XV 48
Forster Cup Second round
24th January 2004
The 5s marched down the motorway to the delightful town of Portadown for the second time this season, on this occasion to face Portadown 5th XV in the Forster Cup. Chit-chat in the lead up to this fixture that Portadown 4ths and 5ths were in fact the same team led to an unusual amount of tension culminating in 12 out of the 15 selected for the fixture finding their way to training on Wednesday night, a first for quite a few of those involved.
No players were lost up the club this week so the 5s strongest team made it on to the pitch at 2.30 possibly for the first time this season, although Eddie (coming back following an injury in October) replaced the unavailable Niall and Marcus moved into the centre to accomodate the excellent Andy Nixon who apparently hasn’t enough pace to play fullback for the under 20s! These youngsters must be real athletes if that’s the case.
The team started the match well following skipper Rob’s insistence that a try must be scored in the first 10 minutes and Wayne went over for the first try after about 30 seconds. This boded well but having faced Portadown teams year after year in the league nobody expected that they would take this lying down. As it happened they did and by half-time Quins were 25-0 up not including Hugh’s dodgily disallowed effort. Even then for once complacency didn’t settle in until another try 30 seconds into the second-half handed the game more or less to the rampant Quins.
As the second half progressed it became clear that our backs were running riot with Ally (who came away with a hat-trick), Andy and Marcus in particular, having a field day. This was made all the easier by the fact that Wally and Wayne seemed to have duplicated themselves to enable them to cover both sides of the pitch at once and some sterling work in defence kept Portadown scoreless until the last play of the game when they suddenly realised how to play rugby (keep it in the forwards) at about the same moment Quins had lost interest in the match.
The lineout functioned brilliantly as usual with Stevie and Coops linking up at ease and a few balls even made it as far as 4. Rumour has it that next week an attempt will be made to throw the ball to Hugh at the back! Jamesy Graham also had a great game in the loose and Marco managed to injure one of Portadown’s props by just letting the lad run into him! The backs all had stormers with Turk’s distribution exceptional and Rob and Marcus linking fantastically with the back three of Barry, Ally and Andy who all looked dangerous every time they got the ball.
One try in particular must be mentioned for its stunning example of free-form rugby extravagance. Quins took the ball into a ruck on their own 10-metre line on the left hand side of the pitch and for once endeavoured to hand it straight to the nearest Portadown player who broke away only to be caught and stripped of the ball. Jamesy made a break to the openside to link-up with the backs who passed it wide before Rob, changing the angle, gave a slick reverse pass to Wayne, who’d somehow managed to run faster than the ball was passed along the backline. He ran around the outside and passed inside to Wally who’d somehow appeared on his shoulder (obviously neither were doing enough work in the tight) who passed it to someone else who passed it to another Quins player who eventually got it to Turk who ran in unopposed from 20 metres. Champagne stuff.
In total approximately 7 tries were scored with Roger converting around 5 of these as well as landing an early penalty. Hugh finally managed to get one in the second half after rampaging through the Portadown defence for the umpteenth time, who along with Ally’s three and Wayne and Turk’s one apiece leaves only one scorer unaccounted for. This was possibly Marcus or Andy but who knows. Answers on a postcard etc.
Man-of-the-match was controversially awarded to Roger O’Gilpin for his Wilko-esque (will we ever get tired of hearing that name) kicking performance from hand and ground as well as organising the backline that possibly had its best performance of the season. Rumour has it that he actually put in a couple of tackles although nothing has been confirmed at this point.
Dick-of-the-Day could not reasonably be awarded to any Harlequin such was the completeness of the performance so the Portadown prop who thought he’d pick a fight with big Hugh only to (allegedly) get his face pounded in and having to be saved by 6 of his mates (very tough) wins hands down. To be fair though, Hugh had nearly removed his head just before with what could only loosely be described as a high “tackle”. Needless to say Belfast Harlequins are not in the business of singling out individual opponents to give them a slagging (unless it’s that player from Malone who wears the red tape, but he knows its all in good humour) so all that can be written is that it was either Portadown’s No. 1 or No. 3.
Next is the Quarter-finals on February 21st against either Queens 3rds or Instonians 4ths, both of which are usually tough games. Queens are the more likely opponent having only lost 2 league games this season. Our old friends at Cooke took voluntary relegation last season to avoid getting another thrashing and are probably struggling again this season. So roll on Queens.
Next week the 5s entertain Shorts at Deramore following a pretty severe humping at Sydenham before Christmas.
Man-of-the-Match: Roger O’Gilpin
Dick-of-the-Day: Portadown tough guy
Team: 1. M McCartney, 2. S Uprichard, 3. J Graham, 4. H Daly, 5. R Cooper, 6. E Wilson, 7. S Weatherup, 8. W Storey, 9. B Turkington, 10. R O’Gilpin, 11. B Dowling, 12. R Calvert (Capt.), 13. M Cummings, 14. A McCulloch, 15. A Nixon.
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