Everyone says that it was all going to come down to this game. That’s not quite true. There’s a lot of work to be done still before this season is done. The club defibrillator was nearly put into use on more than one occasion over the ninety minutes of last Saturdays epic.
Having survived an onslaught for the first fifteen minutes from Instonians, which garnered them the try which was their only score of the game, Bruff managed to hold out until half time keeping the score to 5-0, some would say by the skin of their teeth.
The second half of course saw a complete turnaround and Bruff were the only side that looked like scoring. But not known for doing things the easy way, as usual fate had a hand and Bruff managed to knock on constantly and generally failed to make the last pass go to hand. Two penalties by Brian Cahill (having missed two earlier) meant that the last ten minutes of the game was an extremely tense affair with Bruff defending the slenderest of leads. Bruff spurned the chance of a kick at goal with three minutes to play, opting instead for the kick to touch and the resulting lineout but the play ended with an Instonian break out and having ventured out of their half of the pitch for only the second time in the second half, Instonians were granted a penalty about fifteen metres right of the right post with almost nothing left on the clock. Shades of last years losses against Ballynahinch and Old Wesley raised their ugly heads around the ground but to be honest this was fated to be Bruff’s day. The loudest cheer of the day greeted the miss by the Instonians full back after he managed to leave it to the right of the right post by about a yard.
The toughest day out of the season to date leaves us with an away trip to Ards this coming Saturday, the last home game against Queens Saturday fortnight follows a week off for the Ireland -Scotland game, and finally the away games to Naas and Banbridge complete the schedule for 2007. Next Saturday’s schedule sees Queens and Banbridge play which means that at least one of those will be out of the equation.
We’re having the time of our lives watching ye. Keep it going this weekend boys.