It was a much changed Ballynahinch side that took the pitch for an Community Series Ulster Conference 1 game against Queens at Ballymacarn Park.

Report and images by Bob Given.

For the first 30 minutes the packs sounded each other out, before, in the 34^th minute Queen’s attacked from deep and following quick ball from a ruck, Griffin Philipson powered over from 15 metres for an unconverted try, to give Queens a 5-0 half time lead.

The second half was only minutes old, when Ballynahinch reduced the arrears with a penalty goal from in front of the posts.

On 58 minutes Queens increased their lead with a Ryan O’Neill unconverted try to lead 10-3.

Into the last 10 minutes, following a flowing move Ronan Patterson scored for Ballynahinch, in the corner and with Ross Adair‘s touchline conversion the scores were tied again.

The last few minutes were frenetic. Richie McMaster converted his own try for Queen’s to lead 17-10, only for Zak Ward to score out wide for Ballynahinch. With the clock approaching 80 minutes Adair’s conversion seemed to have given Ballynahinch the draw.

But deep into injury time, a 40+ metre penalty goal from McMaster gave Queen’s a 20-17 victory.

Queen’s now go into the next round of games unbeaten, while Ballynahinch will hope to improve on 2 very narrow defeats.

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