Ballymena 17 Harlequins 22
Ulster Cup Final
Fri 25th Apr 2008
Ballymena travelled to Ravenhill last Friday night to play Belfast Harlequins in the Ulster Senior Cup Final. In a match which Ballymena started off badly they eventually lost by 22 points to 17
After last week’s debacle against Dungannon it was hoped that Ballymena would improve drastically and, although they didn’t exactly shine in the opening stages, as the game wore on Ballymena became more confident but unfortunately at half-time the Quins were 16 points to nil ahead and this gap just proved too big a handicap.
Ballymena started off well and had a good move which almost saw Craig Woods score a sensational try but he was tackled just short. Ballymena were on the wrong end of some early penalty decisions and eventually in the fourth minute Willem Slabbert was close enough to put one over to give the Belfast side the lead.
The game was end to end but was littered with handling errors and poor kicking from both sides. Both sides had chances but two good , alert defences kept the score down until the 24th minute.when Thomas Horner made a good break and off-loaded to Darren Cave who had a clear run to the posts leaving Slabbert an easy conversion.
The Braidmen fought back and almost scored when Ian Caldwell was clear but got overhauled before he could reach the line. Play swung from end to end but then Ballymena were hit by a serious injury to back row player David McKee who had to leave the field. In injury time Rory Blake-Knox of Quins got a serious leg injury and he too had to be stretchered off.
In between these two incidents Slabbert scored two penalties to increase the Ballymena deficit to 16 points. Chris Henry was also yellow carded in the second penalty incident so at half-time things were not looking good for the Braidmen.
Ballymena started the second half with a bit more determination and managed to keep the score the same until Chris Henry came back on. However shortly after his return Ian Caldwell had to leave the field through injury and was replaced by Chris Allen. Chris may be a smaller player than Ian but he added a lot of enthusiasm to the pack and was quick to shut the opposition down. This added a bit more impetus to their attack and 14 minutes into the half they got their reward. A few promising moves just failed to make their target but then Ballymena stole the ball and moved it quickly along the line to Brian Mitchell who evaded a couple of tackles and raced away to score under the posts and Craig Woods converted. Quins came back with a penalty and Craig Woods hit the post with a penalty attempt so Ballymena were still chasing the game.
Ballymena were now fired up and everybody was playing well wanting to take the game to the Quins. Gradually they pushed them back to their own 22 and when the ball broke from a ruck Peter Budina was first to react and got the touchdown which Woods converted.
Now Ballymena were only one score behind but then Slabbert got another penalty to put 8 points between the sides and Ballymena needing two scores. Ballymena’s hopes seemed to have disappeared in the 70th minute when a good passing move saw Craig Woods going for the line with Michael Harshaw outside him. Woods opted to go himself and the chance was lost when he was tackled just short.. Two minutes later Woods got a penalty to reduce the lead and Ballymena went in pursuit of another score but Quins played very clever tight rugby and stifled the game to run out deserved winners.
This was a game which seemed dead at the interval but it turned out to be quite interesting in the second half and at the end could have gone either way. Ballymena had improved tremendously from their previous game and contributed to a great final.
Ballymena: M Banks (J Amos 48); C Woods, P Budina, C Brigl, B Mitchell; P Campbell, C Woods (A Smyth 64); A Kirkpatrick, M Harshaw, S Shawe, I Caldwell (C Allen 52), D McKee (C Smith 25), A Cupples, C Henry.
