Donaghadee 2nd XV 88-0 Rainey 3rd XV (12/9/2009)

It took the Donaghadee team, playing at Donaldson Park, twenty minutes to score their first try (through second row Kyle Morrow), however this was quickly followed by a second try when prop Richard Nelson found himself on the right wing and beat several men to touch down. Richard Millar added a touchline conversion to give the Dee a well deserved 12 -0 lead.

With this young team starting to string their passes together and off-load in the tackle to their support players, the visiting Rainey team knew they were in a match. Even the loss of their winger Smith to injury did not stop the flow of the Dee team. A terrific break by winger Rory Garnham took play into the Rainey half. Centre Richard Millar was able to take his pass and make ground, before offloading to Garnham to score under the posts with Millar adding the points. Donaghadee captain Pete Stevenson then got in on the act, with a devastating forty metre break from a scrum to score underneath the posts, with Millar again adding the points to leave the Dee 26 – 0 up at half time.

Using the slope to its full advantage in the second half, Donaghadee ran in a further ten tries in what became a shortened second half. Captain Stevenson scored the first try with further tries coming from Richard Martindale, Richard Millar(2), David Murray (3), Rory Garnham and Richard Nelson, with Richard Millar also converting nine from eleven attempts with his cultured left boot, to leave him with a personal tally of 28 points from his first outing of the season.

From 1–15 all of the Dee players contributed to this highly entertaining game of rugby. Despite being outplayed the Rainey team competed until the final whistle as they pushed for that consolation try.

Donaghadee team: 15 Jonny Phillips, 14 Conor Smyth, 13 Richard Millar, 12 Andy Magowan, 11 Rory Garnham, 10 Paul Blewitt, 9 Jamie Cardwell; 8 Richard Martindale, 7 Pete Stevenson (captain), 6 Craig McCoy, 5 Kyle Morrow, 4 David Murray, 3 Robert Anderson, 2 Paul Hamilton, 1 Richard Nelson.