Another sunny afternoon at Kerr Park saw Armoy as the visitors. Holywood took the kick off, Armoy fielded it and with either a superb or very lucky kick put the ball back downfield to go into touch five metres from the Holywood line. There then followed a completely bizarre episode. Holywood won the line and the ball was tapped back. From behind the Holywood posts it seemed a simple matter for the ball to be cleared upfield. Instead, the ball hit one of the uprights, flew straight up in the air, came down again and an Armoy player said ‘thanks very much’ and touched down for a try. The conversion followed and after two minutes Holywood were 7 - 0 down.
It was a fairly stunned looking Holywood who trooped back to half-way, but thankfully sanity returned five minutes later. There was a Holywood line-out 15 metres out from the Armoy line, a superb driving maul and Gary Stocker touched down. With the conversion unsuccessful it was Holywood 5 - Armoy 7. For the next ten minutes the play was to and fro between the 22 metre lines before Mike Williams took a pass about thirty metres out and weaved his way through two or three Armoy players to score under the posts. With the conversion it was Holywood 12 - Armoy 7.
Armoy managed to claw back three points five minutes later when after Holywood were penalised, a bit of backchat resulted in them being marched back a further ten metres, making the penalty kickable. Holywood 12 - Armoy 10. The home side made amends for this five minutes later when some slick passing down the line put winger Paul Foster in. The conversion was missed making it Holywood 17 - Armoy 10. Just a few minutes later, a Holywood infringement, followed by kicking the ball away, led to an Armoy penalty ten metres nearer the posts, but the resulting kick bounced back off the upright and the danger was cleared. Then on the stroke of half-time, an Armoy player was yellow carded, leaving them a man down for the start of the second half.
Holywood started the half superbly, as Greg Brown ran the ball straight back at Armoy and scored a try with just seconds on the clock – with the conversion it was Holywood 24 - Armoy 10. For the next few minutes Armoy managed to apply some pressure, but a great kick out of defence and follow-up by Paul Foster forced an Armoy player to give away a penalty near to his own line. From the subsequent Holywood scrum, Justin Shaw barged his way over - Holywood 29 - Armoy 10. Armoy were still trying to make a game of it and repeated Holywood ill-discipline gave them opportunities, but eventually a beautiful cross field kick and good handling saw Paul Foster in for his second try. After this the Gavin Gleeson, the Holywood full-back had to leave the field injured, and another Holywood player was yellow carded, but the home side were now in control and scored further points before the finish, including another by Paul Foster for his hat-trick. Final score - Holywood 46 - Armoy 10.
An excellent performance by Holywood marred only by some ill-discipline and back-chatting to the referee – in this game it was not a deciding factor, but in a closer contest, the reversed decisions and ten metres marched back could have lost Holywood the game. That aside, a great game by all the Holywood team and lets hope they now start climbing the section to contest the promotion spot.
