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QUB RFC 3rd XV 42

Having given this team a fairly comprehensive beating in the cup last week, the mighty fives went into this one with a bit of confidence. A few key unavailabilities in the shape of O'Gilpin, Wilson, Daly and Leitch, but none the less not a bad side out. One worrying note early on was that Marcus had somehow slipped into the ten shirt.

The Queens side didn't look too familiar however and this was backed up by the fact that several of them played against our seconds a couple of weeks ago.There that's the excuses out of the way good and early.

As usual we managed our very slow start and gifted Queens three tries within about 15 minutes. Every one came from our mistake, a glaring knock-on from Paddy at full back and a couple of other fumbles in the back line. 21-nil. It became clear that the traditional way of playing Queens was the only way forward, stick it up the jumper and keep it there. This we started to do and scored a couple of close in tries from lineouts by Steve Morrow and Jamesy Graham.

The Queens Full Back was lightning fast and at one stage he looked like running the length pitch untouched. Barry finally trailed him down but our cover was breached and they scored again before the break. 28-10 at half time.

The second half started with Queens down to 14 men and we kept the ball well driving it through the forwards. With the new laws this year however this one man advantage is virtually useless as we couldn't now play with a number eight and the scrum is taken out of the game completely. Someone change this or we may as well play Rugby League.

From another lineout close in Rob Calvert showed O'Driscoll like strength to dive over, converted by Marcus. 28-17 and Quins had all the pressure.

To be fair to Queens they held their line well but if we had kept it tighter the tries would have come. In the last two minutes Queens scored two converted tries that really made the game look one-sided which it wasn't.

Man of the match was a tight call with no-one really standing out, Niall had an excellent second half making some big yardage. Turk made some good breaks from scrum half and the scrum dominated. We lost a couple on our own throw but at least held our own here overall. Man of the Match should go to Stevie Uprichard who at the age of 54 chased a twelve year old ginger fullback a full 40 metres and caught him in the long grass.

Dick of the day could have gone to Paddy Miscampbell who had a mare in the first half dropping everything bar his trousers, but in the end it goes to the Queens Centre who having made a lovely break steps inside our full back and with no-one to became becalmed on the Deramore beach.

MOTM : Steve Uprichard
DOTD : Queens centre

TEAM : 1. M McCartney 2. S Uprichard 3. J Graham 4. R Cooper 5. N Bryson 6. S Morrow 7 S Weatherup 8 W Storey 9 B Turkington 10 M Cummings 11 Bob Magee 12 R Calvert (Capt.) 13 B Dowling 14 A McCullough 15 P Miscampbell.

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