A hard fought win on the road was just reward for a great second half display by the Letterkenny side on their visit to Pollock Park in Lurgan. At one stage it looked like the Donegal men were going to suffer another away defeat but they showed fantastic character and belief to fight back from 20-3 down at one stage to win the game.

Out-half Ryan Mortimer started the game with a perfect short drop-off but unfortunately brother Ben’s tackle on the catcher in the air was a good deal less than perfect and immediately Lurgan established good field position from the resultant penalty. Letterkenny managed to repel the Lurgan attacks and were getting good front foot ball with the welcome return of Captain Terence Gallagher making good ground from the base of scrums.

Some confusion existed in attack which led to a pass to nowhere which was pounced on by the hungrier Lurgan backs. After switching play from the left to the right, Letterkenny weren’t sharp enough to close down the threat, and the winger opened Lurgan’s account with an unconverted try. A converted try soon followed after another great run by Gallagher his attempted offload landed in between the Letterkenny centres and again the Lurgan backs were quickest to react, hacked through, gathered and scored the simplest of tries. Shortly after, Ryan Mortimer was very harshly penalised for a poaching a turnover and the penalty was duly converted.

Letterkenny had difficulty containing the Lurgan full back who seemed to be an elusive runner but towards the end of the first half had a good period of pressure with Conor Dunleavy, Gary Canning and Gareth McGill all making good inroads into the Lurgan defence. The pressure led to a penalty which Mortimer converted.

The second half started brightly for the Donegal men who seemed to have shaken the journey out of them and sussed out that the Lurgan defence was found wanting around the fringes of the ruck. Deep inside the Lurgan 22, the Lurgan hooker went off his feet in an attempt to secure turnover ball and half the Letterkenny team stopped playing expecting the referees whistle. A harsh lesson was learnt regarding playing to the whistle as Lurgan quickly counterattacked down the right flank with the fullback running amuck and then play switched to the left and a couple of weak attempts at tackling their flanker allowed him in for an unconverted try.

Lesser sides may have folded at this juncture but the response from the Letterkenny team was impressive. Almost immediately they worked their way up towards the Lurgan line following great carries by Gallagher, Dunleavy and Canning and the home side were getting increasingly desperate defensively and following a series of penalties their prop was sin binned. Dunleavy made Lurgan pay by barging over from close range for an unconverted try. From the restart Letterkenny attacked with purpose and heaped pressure on their opponents through runners off 9 and an impressive lineout maul. As soon as the Lurgan prop returned to the field his flanker colleague was shown yellow for collapsing a maul. With Letterkenny camped inside the Lurgan 22 the pressure was bound to tell and Dunleavy picked another great line in between two defenders to score his second try which was converted by Mortimer.

With ten minutes still remaining Letterkenny went for the win and quickly worked their way into opposition territory with Mortimer and Sheridan making good ground from penalty kicks out of hand. After three assaults on the Lurgan line using the lineout maul Gareth McGill was successful in scoring the try that tied the scores. Mortimer cooly converted the kick from a difficult angle to put Letterkenny in front for the first time of the afternoon.

Two penalty opportunities were missed by Lurgan in the closing minutes to leave Letterkenny victorious. Credit must be given to Chris Peterson and Chris McCrudden who came in to the back line at the eleventh hour and did remarkably well.

There is a welcome break for the 1st XV this week as a run of nine consecutive league games starts with the visit of Monaghan to Dave Gallaher Park on Saturday 31st October.
Training continues on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7-8.30pm. All are welcome.