OPHIR PASS ‘HIGH SCHOOL’ TEST

A howling wind and a large crowd of supporters greeted Ophir for their first vist to BHSFP in 5 years.

Ophir outhalf James Milligan kicked off deep into BHSFP territory, the ball was moved across the pitch and after some great work by the forwards up the short side, veteran flanker Neil Gray barged his way over the line for the games opening try after two minutes. David Walker narrowly missed with the conversion. BHSFP got some points on the board after nine minutes with a penalty when Ophir winger Steven Hastings was adjuged to have deliberately knocked the ball on while attempting to intercept a pass. The restart kick went straight into touch and from the resultant scrum BHSFP moved the ball close to the Ophir goal line. After a series of scrums BHSFP drove over for a try. The conversion was missed.

This served only for Ophir to up the effort level and become dominant. David Walker found a gap in the BHSFP defence and jinked his way over the line. This time he made no mistake with the conversion. Karl Davis gave a cheeky inside pass to David Lucas and the flanker smashed through a despairing tackle to score a great try.
Ophir kept up the intensity which stretched the BHSFP defence and outhalf James Milligan who is in a rich vein of form rounded out the first half with a well taken try.
The conversion was missed.
Half time score 27-8 to Ophir.

Ophir started the second half with the wind at their backs and after some great positional kicking from the half backs moved into the BHSFP 22. Sustained pressure on the BHSFP line saw winger Paul McGreevy skin two defenders to go over in the corner. David Walker calmly slotted over a penalty from 40 metres to make the score 35-8 to Ophir. Heavy rainfall arrived soon after and Ophir were held up over the BHSFP line 3 times. James Milligan again probed the defence and strolled in under the posts. Walker again converted. Scrumhalf Karl Davis went on one of his trademark breaks, turning the BHSFP defence inside out and only a despairing tackle prevented a certain score. Fullback David ‘twinkle toes’ Walker showed some neat footwork to nutmeg the BHSFP defender and fall over the line to score yet another Ophir try. Ophir kept up the pace and only a forward pass denied centre Cillian Rooney a try in the dying seconds of a highly entertaining game.
Final score, Ophir 47 BHSFP 8.

The hard work in training is paying off and coach Ken Campbell challenged his team to improve on this performance in the coming weeks with two tricky away games at Virginia and Ballyshannon.

Thanks to Malcolm Kane & Stewart Henry for touch judge & medical bag duties.

Up the Ophs!