Club Men: Academy 13 Limavady 16 (URC D2)

Our Saturday afternoon adventure continued with a quick halftime dash from The Cloughan to Roughfort Road to catch the second half of the Ulster Rugby Championship D2 table topper between Academy and Limavady.

All went according to plan until we got parked up at Academy’s grounds where we found that the match was being played on the pitch furthest from the car park in the Club/Schools sprawling complex.

After a bit of a hike we got pitchside just as Academy were bundling over the line for their first try, by Stewart Martin, to pull the score back to 8 – 18 about 10 minutes into the second half.

Limavady had clocked up a 3 – 13 lead at half time thanks two penalties from Peter Wilson before a try on the half hour mark by Jody McMurray, converted by Wilson. Academy’s only score of the first half coming from a penalty from Chris Cooper.

McMurray added a long range penalty at the start of the second half to stretch the Limavady lead to 3 – 16 before my arrival changed the fortunes for the home side – either that or the strong wind that was now at their back!

Having pulled the score back to 8 – 16 Academy could sniff a chance of turning this game around but the tenseness of the occasion made it a stop/start affair with neither side being given a chance to develop much.

However as the game went into the final quarter a second barging run by Martin ended with the Academy pack driving him over the line for their second try, which went unconverted, to give a score of 13 – 16.

A long ten minutes saw both teams battle it out in the middle of the park with the Limavady defence just about coming out on top to secure a memorable win.

Final score: Academy 13 Limavady 16

A big thanks to Steve Haslet for letting us use some of his photos from the first half. Click here to view Steve’s full gallery of the game. 

GALLERY BELOW