Unlucky Hinch sunk by Dubs

Unlucky Hinch sunk by Dubs

20 October 2021

BALLYNAHINCH travelled to the historic surroundings of College Park, having reshuffled their team in the wake of injuries and concussions suffered in the bruising battle with Clontarf the previous weekend.

Zack McCall moved to the back row in the absence of Reuben Crothers, allowing Ulster’s Tom Stewart to start at hooker and Josh Hanlon to come on to the bench. In the absence of both John Donnan and James Simpson, Bradley Luney started in the second row and Jack Milligan came in at out half with Greg Hutley moving into midfield to cover the loss of Tagen Strydom.

Shane Ball and Paddy Wright swapped positions as Adam Craig and his coaching team searched for the right formula in attack.

Trinity were fresh off a demolition of UCD in the colours match and were able to choose from a full squad with Leinster’s Liam Turner in midfield and highly regarded Ulster Academy prospect Harry Sheridan in the second row. 

Leinster senior squad regular Jack Dunne continued his rehab from injury with a place on the Trinity bench.

Ballynahinch started badly with handling errors and a misfiring line-out inviting pressure. 

Despite some high quality scramble defence, they found themselves seven points down after a series of Trinity carries pinned them on their own line and quick hands and some good footwork took Max Faria over for a converted try. 

This was compounded by the loss of Milligan and prop Ben Cullen to injury.

Another excellent defensive set allowed Ballynahinch time to dig in and they began to take the game to the students as the half wore on. 

A strong maul earned them a penalty on 25 minutes which Hutley knocked over from 35 metres to get his side on the board. 

Turner made a brilliant break just before half time but more superb scrambling kept the half time deficit at just four points. 

Ballynahinch had much the better of the opening exchanges of the second half and after going close to scoring a try, another Hutley penalty left the game delicately balanced. 

Turner then stamped his class on proceedings with a superb outside break on the Ballynahinch 10-metre line, opening up the defence for winger Marcus Kiely to score. Trinity then turned up the heat in the forwards and sealed the result with a close range try from a fine line-out move involving Dunne and Sheridan in the 71st minute. 

Thirteen points down with 10 minutes to go, Ballynahinch could have folded but they gamely stuck to their task and showed all their fighting spirit by attacking the Trinity line. 

They were rewarded with a try from Hutley on the game’s final play as he exploited the numerical advantage in the Trinity backline following a yellow card. He then calmly knocked over the conversion to salvage a point for his side.

Despite opening with three defeats, Ballynahinch have shown improvement with each match and will be confident that they can soon return to winning ways. 

They have a week off to regroup and rehab some injured players before the visit of table-topping Garryowen to Ballymacarn Park on October 30.

Ballynahinch: B Cullen, T Stewart, K McCall, T Donnan, B Luney, Z McCall, O Loughead, C Irvine, C Gibson, J Milligan, A Cairns, G Hutley, R Wilson, P Wright, S Ball, J Hanlon, H Simpson, T Martin, D Souza, C McAuley, R Patterson.