Impressive Down High through to final after cruise over Regent

11 March 2015

DOWN High produced a convincing performance on Saturday in Newtownards to comfortably defeat Regent and secure a place in the Danske Bank Subsidiary Shield final.

The two sides had met twice already this season with Down High coming out on top on both occasions, the locals had been well warned about complacency and knew Regent would make the most of their home field advantage.

Down High kicked off into the strong breeze and in the opening minutes looked capable of scoring an early try, but a few instances of poor decision making in the wide channels meant that Regent were able to contain them.

The early exchanges at set piece suggested Regent had the more dominant scrum, but the Down line out was superior.

As the half developed Regent began to make smarter use of the wind and made territorial gains with the boot. Around eight minutes Regent did opt to kick a penalty to the corner in attempt to catch and drive off the line out, but the visiting defence held firm.

However, shortly afterwards, around the 10 minute mark, a penalty was awarded to the home side when Down High were deemed to be offside at a ruck. The Regent kicker gauged the wind effectively and slotted the kick to give his side the opening score.

During the following 10 minute period Down High retained possession well and mounted several promising attacks, but also defended with great resilience when Regent were in possession.

It took until the 20 minute mark until Down High managed to record points when Rory Kerr showed excellent pace to expose a gap in the home defence and run in for the score on the back of some excellent phase play by Down High. Jo Bingham read the wind to perfection when he added the difficult conversion.

Before half-time both sides had opportunities to extend their tally of scores. Regent had a penalty attempt drift wide and Down High showed some excellent open play decision making that allowed Luke Sandford to run in from his own half, only for him to be called back because the referee deemed the final pass to be forward. Given the strong wind, Down High were delighted to head into half-time with a 7-3 lead.

In the second half Down High took seven minutes to extend their lead. They clearly appreciated the assistance of the wind to get into Regent territory and their first score of the half came from Luke Sandford, who ran a great line off a back line set piece move to touch down under the posts. Bingham added the extras.

Down High suffered a setback 13 minutes into the half when Zac Ward was yellow carded for being offside at the ruck, but their defence held firm during this period and never really looked like their line was under threat.

Not long after they were restored to the full compliment. Off some open play, Ross Carlisle showed some great footwork to slip through the defence and cross the whitewash. Uncharacteristically, Bingham’s conversion drifted wide.

With the result now looking fairly safe, Down High made a number of changes to give some of their squad players more game experience. These replacements did extremely well and Down High continued to both attack and defend well.

Despite this Regent did manage a consolatory unconverted try one minute from full time to leave the final score 19-8 in favour of Down High.

The final whistle was greeted with elation from the Down High players and support as they now relish the opportunity to play at the Kingspan Stadium in the final of this historic competition. Down High last played in this final in 1982. The final will be played Thursday, March 19, at 2.30pm.

Down High 19

Regent House 8

SUBSIDIARY SHIELD SEMI-FINAL

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