Our Westport u17s visited Ballina for their third encounter this season (2 previous challenge matches), for our Bowl semi-final, with the winner to face Carrick on Shannon in the Bowl final on 27th April.
The day brightened up nicely before kick off with Ballina electing to play against the light breeze in the first half.
After sustaining a spirited attack into their 22, Westport regained possession and drove upfield quickly to Ballinas 5 having to recycle from rucks and find a hole for Darren Daly to drive strong and touch down for the games opening try, 0-5 lead for Westport.
Ballina have always been a tough opposition to play against and they showed their ambitions by responding with a well worked move from left to right and dancing over the Westport line for a converted try to take the lead 7-5.
Gathering themselves and knowing that their game had to tighten up, Westport engaged Ballina in a tight second quarter, absorbing their pressure and then looking for weaknesses with centre field drives, again offloading to Darren Daly to drive over for a second score and conversion to go to the break leading the hosts 7 -12, but picking up a 7 minute sin bin at the death.
If the first half was a tight affair, the second half was an awakening of both sides, as no less than 8 tries were shared between them.
For Westport, Darren Daly rounded off his hat trick of tries, energised in his new role as flanker (from second row) and obviously not wasting his chance, with a great individual performance.
The other great performance of the day came from Brendon Witzl, normally our regular winger, however Brendon covered the centre position in the first half before restoring his role on the wing in the second and it didn’t take long for Brendon to do what he does best, rattling in 3 second half tries with strong, fast runs, the last of which had 2 Ballina players being dragged hanging onto one leg, glad he had two.
All of the above of course doesn’t happen without a whole team effort and other strong performances from Callum O’Grady, Paul Edmundson, Jack Danagher, Gavin Forde, Conor Moran, Liam Geraghty and Marcel Baszczynski, who did a lot of the hard graft that forwards do, our solid and reliable Alan Gannon, Luke Cox, Finn Hanley and Jake Tunney Ware, marshalled the midfield along with the menacing presence of Reuben Maguire and James McLoughlin for taking good care of the back of house. A special mention too for relative newbies, Sean Keane for his pack work and Aodhan Gavin who continues to show great promise on the wing with developing confidence and pace.
No game is without its errors and Westport will know that their 3 yellow cards and penalty count against them has to be worked on before the final, but that’s not to take away from the serious intent shown from the kick off, they put Ballina under serious pressure with positional play, strong drives, spreading the ball wide from the breakdown and finding the gaps.
So, Westports third game v Ballina this season and at the final whistle, our Westport lads maintained their 100% record against good opposition and look forward to their final v Carrick.
Back row - Jack Danagher, Finn Hanley, Jake Tunney Ware, Alan Gannon (Captain), Liam Geraghty, Conor Moran, Callum O’Grady, Darren Daly and Sean Keane. Front row - Marcel Baszczynski, Reuben Maguire, James McLoughlin, Luke Cox, Brendon Witzl, Paul Edmundson Aodhan Gavin & missing from photo Gavin Forde.
