We caught up with the Medallion Shied semi final between Sullivan Upper and Friends School at Grosvenor Grammar on Saturday morning.
Friends won the toss and elected to play with the wind on their backs. Nerves must have been jangling with a series of handling errors as both sides struggled to hang onto the ball. It took 20 minutes of fractured play before Sullivan Captain Lucas McKeown breached the friends defence and raced in under the posts easily converted by Noah Cassidy to take a 7 – 0 lead.
Friends were largely in control the rest of the half and got over the line twice but were denied the scores, thwarted first by the side line and then fearless Sullivan defence holding the ball up just on half time whistle leaving their team holding onto the slender lead at the break.
Friends picked up where they left off and laid siege to the Sullivan line. The Holywood lads repeatedly infringed as Friends searched for the try line and eventually the ref had enough and sent Captain McKeown to the bin. Despite the man advantage Friends could not breakdown the dogged Sullivan defence and the score line had not shifted when McKeown re-joined the game.
A clearance kick from Sullivan was gathered by Friends out half Will Smyth who spotted space, made a decisive break before offloading to outside centre Eddie Hall who powered across the line to get Friends off the mark. Wing Aidan Lough made the difficult conversion in the cross wind and the teams were level at 7 – 7 15 minutes into the second half.
Sullivan responded immediately with a charge down from W. Doyle deep in Friends 22 and prop J. McWilliams pounced upon the loose ball before holding off three tacklers to smash his way over the try line to get Sullivan back in front 12 – 7.
Friends went immediately back on the attack and despite playing into the wind they pushed Sullivan backwards. Impressive lock Joe Rice Dcruz balanced the scores again as he muscled his way under to posts to give his team a chance of taking the lead. A cruel twist saw Mother Nature twice blow the ball off the kicking tee as Lough composed himself to take the conversion eventually having to attempt a drop kick as time ran out, which he dragged wide to leave the score at 12 – 12.
With seconds left and the score at 12-12 Friends won a penalty central park just outside the Sullivan 22. Up stepped Lough to kick his side to victory but again the wind gusted and the shot sailed wide. Final score 12-12
