Corinthians and ’Wegians continue winning ways in AIL

Malone 3

Corinthians had to dig deep to secure a win against Malone on Saturday afternoon in Cloonacauneen Park, with the win keeping Phil Pretorious’ side second in the table.

The visitors played with the elements in their favour in the first-half, and took the lead through the boot of James MacKenny, but that is all they had to show for their efforts.

The home side stepped up their performance in the second-half, and finally made the breakthrough on the hour mark when lock Colin Raftery was driven over the line for a try from a line-out, which Fionn Gormley converted

The Corinthians captain added a late penalty to secure the win, which sees Corinthians maintain their spot in second-plaec in the Divbision 1b table.

Banbridge 7

Galwegians 11

Galwegians went top of Ulster Bank League Division 2a when they won a hard-fought encounter away to Ulster side Banbridge in this re-arranged fixture on Saturday, making it six wins from six for the Glenina side.

’Wegians took the lead on 10 minutes when the home defence drifted offside defending their line, with out-half Ross Shaughnessy slotted over the resulting penalty.

They stretched their lead at the end of the first quarter following an excellent blockdown by lock Anthony Ryan on the Banbridge 22, and the alert ’Wegians captain Brian McClearn fed Shaughnessy who dived over for the opening try.  However the relatively easy conversion was missed to leave it 8-0.

The hosts started the second-half brightly and early pressure was rewarded when a chip through was touched down by winger Hugo Harbison, which was converted by Adam Docherty to reduce the gap to a single point.

Substitute out-half Ciaran Gaffney split the posts with a well-struck penalty near the end to seal the win for Galwegians, which sees them move top of the table.