The 4s made the trip to roughfort looking to make amends for a poor showing in last week’s disappointing loss to ballyclare.
The game started at a frantic pace with both sides making line breaks but some last ditch tackling or poor handling from both meant the game remained scoreless after 15mins.
Another linebreak from the ballymena back row lead to a simple penalty in front of the posts. 0-3
This settled the 4s down and they started to play some excellent rugby, the half backs & mikey smith at 15 controlled the game with some great touch finders making sure the remainer of the 1st half was played in acamdey territory…a scrum just outside the academy 22m was recycled and fed through the hands to Sam Henry on the wing who beat 2 men only to stumble and fall 1m short, but he was able to get back to his feet and score in the corner. 0-8
After some kick tennis the ballymena back 3 decided to run it back….an excellent dummy on the wing lead to a line break followed by no less than 6 offloads out of the tackle for Mikey Smith to touch down under the posts. 0-15
With only seconds remaining in the 1st half ballymena had a scrum on halfway andnot for the 1st time in their careers a mix up between drysdale & James in midfield resulted in a turn over and after 2 phases academy scored in the corner. 7-15 HT
The last score seemed to light a spark in the academy team and they started the 2nd half well scoring a well worked team try. 14-15
Ballymena went on to dominate the remainder of the 2nd half limiting Academy to just 1 visit in the 22m which was well defended and resulted in a penalty to ballymena.
Following a midfield scrum a line break and off load from James allowed R. Smith to burst into the 22m, following several picks from the pack mike kerr hit a line off 9 and carried 2 boys over the line with him. 14-22.
Ballymena’s final scores came via another penalty from Drysdale, a fantastic solo effort from Rory Smith and on the hooter Mike kerr decided to pick and go down the short side, shrugged of 3 would be tackles and scored in the corner.
Final score Academy 2s 14 – 35 Ballymena 4s
