28th January 2008

Armagh travelled to a windswept Judges road to play the second round of the Crawford Cup. City of Derry second fifteen play in a section above Armagh in the Magners Junior League. They proudly held on to their unbeaten record this season as did Portadown two weeks previously. With the home venue and memories of last season’s defeat at Judges road in the AIB play-offs the Derry side were starting the game as firm favourites.

There were three changes to the side from last week with team captain, Mark Laverty returning to full-back as Stuart Lester was selected for the first fifteen. Andrew Knipe played at scrum-half as Eoghan Curran also was selected for the senior side. Stephen Morton replaced the unavailable Con Oliver.

The first half kicked off with a strong cross wind favouring neither side. The game started off as a scrappy affair with both sides facing the half-time break at 0-0.

Derry were reduced to 14 men when their prop had to go off for attention after a huge tackle from Jamie Cornett.

The second half saw Armagh emerge as the stronger side with a penalty attempt just drifting wide. The visitors then made a conscious decision to change from their usual expansive game to one of a territorial nature.

Then Phil McAlister almost breached the Derry defence with a strong 40 metre run only to be tackled just short of the line. Derry did look dangerous when they gained possession but the Armagh defence was superb. Armagh almost scored when the backs penetrated the Derry defence only to suffer a handling error just 15 metres short of the line.

Sam Shepherd put in a perfectly judged kick into the corner with winger Brady outpacing his counterpart but the home team managed to scramble the ball into touch. From the resultant line-out Armagh launched a rolling maul with Stephen Morton touching down in the corner.

The conversion by Chris Black went wide. By now Armagh were dominating line-outs with Cornett and Orr taking control. The front row combination of Stephen Morton, Richard Morton and Jason McMahon were controlling the scrums.

The Armagh forwards even took two scrums against the head. The forwards crossed the Derry line twice but the referee ruled both tries to have been held up.

The referee eventually lost patience and sin-binned the Derry out-half for continual offences.

With only 5 minutes left on the clock it was third time lucky after a series of line-outs and Rory Hanna was driven over to make the game safe at 0-10.

In the final play of the game, however, Derry ended their best period of possession only to end with Jason McMahon making a 40 metre burst up the field. This ended the game with the Armagh supporters well entertained and hopeful for a home draw in the next round of the cup.