On Saturday 23rd September Ophir 1st XV travelled to Dungannon with hopes of getting their first win of the season. This game was set up as the kick start to the season, with the two previous performances having positives but always ended up on the wrong end of the score line.

With the 2nd’s not having a game this week, it meant a bigger headache during selection or so they thought... Going into Saturday with 17 due to unforeseen issues, another 2 dropped out on Saturday morning leaving the team struggling for positives.

Chris Phillips lead the team out to face a Dungannon side who is currently unbeaten this campaign. Kick off hit quite quickly for the Ophir lads with Alan Davison, who stepped into 10 this week in place of Andrew Rushton hit a floating ball, that allowed the chasing forwards to put pressure on the Dungannon receivers. It paid off as Dungannon knocked the ball on and right into the path of Nigel Murray, who set the platform up well for Ben Lowry to feed of the base of the ruck.

Big hitting as Dungannon were, they put a lot of pressure on both 9 and 10 and quickly asserted their dominance early on with a big turnover on Chris Phillips which allowed them to spread the ball wide and threaten the Ophir try line with every attack. It wasn’t long before try number 2,3,4 had passed with little highlights in between for the Ophir lads.

Not going to give a half time score this week...

The first 5 minutes of the second half seemed to revitalise the lads, who focused more on their defensive responsibilities and it payed off, Although the rest of the half did not go any better than the first and Chris Phillips took the opportunity to cut their losses and concede the match at the 60 minute mark.

Final Score Dungannon 71 - 0 Ophir

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