Malone progress to the Semi-Final of the McCrea Cup

McCrea Cup Quarter Final

Malone seconds 46 Academy 10

Again the bitterly cold weather conditions were the main talking point in the first 50 mins of this game as a sluggish performance from a Malone team that failed to impose themselves in this match in their defence of the McCrea Cup. Malone out half Bruce Duff had given his side an early 3 – 0 lead with the hardy supporters braving the conditions expecting the Malone team to push on. It was far from the case as the Academy team led by their number 8 Stuart Martin carried the game to the Malone team. 20 mins into the first half young Malone winger Jack Knox was unlucky to pick up a yellow card for a tip tackle as his momentum carried him through on the Academy winger. Despite being one man down it was the Malone team who extended their lead on the half time whistle with centre Davy Irvine scoring a try converted by Bruce Duff to increase their lead to 10 – 0.
Again if we expected this Malone team to push on it was the visitors who opened the second half with a bang. An early penalty by their scrum half Dave Kenny was followed up by an intercept by Academy centre Lewis Davidson who ran 60 metres to touch down with Kenny converting to level the scores at 10 – 10.

The one area where Malone had dominated all match was the set scrum with the front row winning another penalty. Up stepped Duff to restore the Malone lead to 13 – 10. The home side made a number of changes with Max Porter and Daniel Henry coming on to replace Stuart Doddington and Jonny Ogilby in the back row. From the kick off Malone second row Lee Barlow gathered the ball to set off on one of his trademark charges up the middle of the Park. From recycled ball scrum half Callum Jeffrey and winger Jack McMurtry carried deep into the Academy twenty two for number 8 Neil Alcorn to receive the pass and touch down beside the posts for Duff to convert and extend the home sides lead to 20 – 10. This score seemed to knock the heart out of the Academy side and energise the Malone side. The third try arrived shortly afterwards with Barlow deservedly scoring and Duff converting to extend the Malone lead to 27 – 10. When Academy went down to 14 players with 10 minutes left it was Malone who took over the remaining minutes of the match scoring a further three tries. The first was a 40 metre dash by centre Ryan Spence who evaded the Academy cover. The second try was a team effort involving forwards and backs with second row Tiarnan Dillon deservedly getting the touch down with winger Jack Knox showing his pace to out run the cover to score his teams sixth try with out half Bruce Duff converting two to end up with 16 points.

As I said the first 50 minutes did not do much to excite the crowd before the Malone team took over to dominate the final 30 minutes.

Malone seconds will join Grosvenor, Cooke and the PSNI in the semi final draw to be made on Tuesday with the semi finals to be played on Saturday 17th March.

Malone seconds team: 1. Ricky Greenwood (Captain), 2. Conor Kelly, 3. Philip Eadie, 4. Lee Barlow, 5. Tiarnan Dillon, 6. Jonny Ogilby, 7. Stuart Doddington, 8. Neil Alcorn, 9. Callum Jeffrey, 10. Bruce Duff, 11. Jack Knox, 12, David Irvine, 13. Ryan Spence, 14. Jack McMurtry, 15. Gareth Millar, 16. Max Porter, 17. Daniel Henry.

Academy team: 1. Jonny Allen, 2. Adam martin, 3. Troy Wilson, 4. Kyle Gregg, 5. Keith Dobbin, 6. Pearce McClarnon, 7. James Watts, 8. Stuart martin, 9. David Kenny, 10. Ross Bryans, 11. David McCullough, 12. Andy Eggleton, 13. Lewis Davidson, 14. Steven Fawcett, 15. Simon Beattie, 16. Adam Sloan, 17. Jamie Wilson.