AIL Division 1
Armagh 22 Ballynahinch 29
By James Kirk
Ballynahinch underlined their status as Ulster’s leading club with superb away victories against Ulster rivals on Saturday.
The senior side were always in control as they condemned Armagh to the relegation play-offs with a bonus point victory at the Palace Grounds while the seconds pulled off a sensational victory at Mullaghmeen to defeat a strongly fancied Enniskillen side in the Towns Cup semi-final and reach the Easter Monday showpiece final at Kingspan Stadium.
Adam Craig and his coaching team balanced their resources as evenly as possible to give both sides the chance of victory and were rewarded with excellent performances from some unlikely sources.
There were three debutants for the firsts with Kobi Dunn, Josh McMullan and Rory Fulton getting their first taste of the AIL experience, while veterans Kelvin Hamilton and Harry McCormick helped provide a platform for a young back row and halfbacks to influence the game for the seconds.
In Armagh, a flying start by Ballynahinch left the home side playing catchup with converted tries from Marcus Rea and Claytan Milligan.
Ruairi Meharg was also on the scoresheet but a try just before halftime from the home side closed the gap to just seven points at the break, and with the threat of relegation as a motivating factor, Armagh had confidence that they could go on and win against a Ballynahinch side with nothing to play for.
This scenario looked likely to play out when an Armagh try closed the gap to two points with half an hour to go.
However, Ballynahinch view their excellent AIL record against Armagh with pride and dug in to score another try through Meharg to once again move two scores clear.
Read the full report in the current issue of the Mourne Observer.
