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INSTONIANS 4 XV 14 BHSFP 2 XV 3 22/12/2007

Revenge is sweet, especially against the current league leaders who won the previous close encounter by 2 points in October.

For the first time this season the side started off well, with the pack dominating the forward exchanges. This gave us territorial domination and were soon in a 3-0 lead thanks to a fine penalty from Aaron Gardiner. This was soon followed by a great try from J.K after great work from the pack .
Despite several further attacks on the opposition line, silly mistakes at the last phase of play cost us at least 2 more tries and the first half ended with a frustrating 8-3 lead.

In the second half the pack continued to dominate , but on one of the rare occasions that High School were in our 22m area ,yellow card virgin Andy Field, was sin- binned for slowing down play, and from under the posts, High School scored their first and only points of the game .

Despite being reduced to 14 men , the side lifted their game and went further ahead after an excellent long range penalty from Mark Gormley brought the score to 11-3. With the return of Andy Field to the back row we continued to pound their line, but again were guilty of white line fever, messing up the final phase of play time and time again. Another well taken penalty from Aaron Gardiner in the remaining few minutes closed the game out ,bringing the final score to 14-3.

Thanks to High School for the great game and also to the ref for controlling the match so well.

Team Captain,
Michael Tann

Letterkenny 2 XV 20 Instonians 4 XV 25 15/9/2007

Not a great match and not much style to the rugby from both sides , but a win is a win, and hopefully the standard will improve as the season progresses.
Inst trailed at half time but came back to win with tries from John Minnis and Richard Mckibbin and penalties from Keith Rossan ,helping to dig us out of the grave we had dug ourselves into from the start .

Dromore 3 XV 0 Instonians 4 XV 40 29/9/2007

a better all round performance this time with a comprehensive victory .The first half got off to a slow start with several wasted scoring opportunities due to poor communication and deaf ears , but by the time the second half came around the flood gates opened and the scores starting coming. Dromore heads started to drop and the team started to put away scoring opportunities they had previously wasted in the first half.

BHSFP 2 XV 13 Instonians 4 XV 11 6/10/2007

beaten for the first time this season this was a tremendously frustrating performance , with the side leaving the pitch feeling this is one they should have and could have won , all for a disastrous opening first ten minutes when the High School scored two soft tries to put them 10-0 ahead in as many minutes. They followed this up with a further penalty to leave the score at half time 13-0 in their favour.
In the second half the pack finally woke up and started to play with some degree of coherence , eventually leading to Michael Tan being driven over for a try after good mauling by the pack ,close to the High School line. The match remained tight enough after that , but despite 2 penalties from Keith Rossan to bring us within 2 points , we were unable to complete the come back, the only consolation being that the opposition never managed to score in the second half.

Instonians 4 XV 54 Lisburn 3 XV 6 13/10/2007

Our first home game of the season , and a pleasing win , although though it has to be said that the opposition did not seem to be up for this match from the start and seemed to be a young and inexperienced side . Once again as with the match against Dromore ,once the flood gates opened the opposition dropped their heads , their defence went to pieces and allowed us to run in several easy scores especially in the second half .Credit to the lads for keeping their structure during the game despite the fact that the opposition seemed to have given up ; you can only play whats in front of you.Special mention must go to Chris Sweeney who I believe scored four tries at the last count and was a constant thorn in the Lisburn side.

Ballymoney 3 XV 13 Instonians 4 XV 12 20/10/2007

We may have only lost by 1 point but this margin flattered us and we were very lucky not to lose by more against a very strong well organised Ballymoney side , currently undefeated and sitting at the top of our league .
Despite playing the poorer rugby in the first half , we came away only 1 point down at 8-7 after a great opportunist try from Gordon Keane pouncing on a ball in the dead ball area that their full back , a la french full back, Clemont Poitrenaude , looked at and failed to ground .
The second half again found Ballymoney dominating in most facets of play , but again against the run of play we took the lead after a clever kick ahead by Neil Jacques was touched down by James Cochrane , who had a fine debut game for us .Unfortunately he became badly concussed after a very heroic and brave kamikaze tackle , mid way through the second half, putting him out of any matches for the next 2 weeks .
However Ballymoney pressure eventually told leading to a well worked try in the far corner , winning the match 13-12.

Instonians 4 XV 57 Larne 3 XV 0 27/10/2007

After last week's defeat this was a pleasing turnaround with a good all round team performance ; unlike in previous high scoring matches , this Larne side did not throw in the towel early and made a match of it right to the end, making us work hard for all our tries despite what the final score may say , Too many scorers for me to mention individually,
with everybody from 1 to 15 contributing.

Monaghan 2 XV 31 Instonians 4 XV 5 10/11/2007

One of our poorest displays of the season so far with Monaghan so much more up for this match from the start; even though we did not have our usual side out it was no excuse for the below par performance ; they scored 2 tries in the first half but just before half time a quick taken penalty lead to a well taken try by Gareth Hiscocks , bringing us to within 1 score and the feeling that the tide was turning in our favour; unfortunately this was not to be the case and instead of starting the second half with the momentum we had gained at the end of the first half, we allowed Monagahan to gain the upper hand and they very quickly scored within the first few minutes followed then by a further score , and from there on in it was catch up rugby for us trying to run it from anywhere on the pitch , sometimes almost pulling it off, but more times than not failing spectacularly and giving away the ball to allow them in for a few easy tries .
Horrible game , horrible result , horrible performance ; we couldn't play this badly again ; must and will to better in the return match with a full strength side .

Instonians 4 XV 10 Ballynahinch 5 XV 12 24/11/2007

Nothing worse than losing a match due to conversions, with both teams scoring 2 tries but Hinch converting theirs'.
What made this even more painful was the fact that Hinch only had 14 men for three quarters of the match and the players all know that this is a match we should have won with ease if we'd only played the right tactics from the start .
In the first half Hinch took the lead with a well worked try from their backs ; no further scores followed and the second half started with Inst now with the strong wind at their backs and starting to dominate and turn over ball at the breakdown; however disaster struck ten minutes in when after winning possession again at the maul we flashed the ball along our backs only for a fumbled pass leading to an interception try for Hinch extending their lead to 14-0.
It finally sunk in that if we were going to turn this match around it would have to be through the pack taking on more of the ball and we were soon rewarded with our first try when Michael Tan was driven over the line by the pack after a penalty taken close to the line ; soon after we added a second score again after driving play by the pack , this time Peter McClintock scoring in the corner. However the Hinch defence managed to hold out for the final ten minutes as time and time again we tried to break through but failed ; hard luck to the boys who gave 100% but overall we need to become more aware of playing tactically and improving our basic passing skills at speed .