Match report by Geoff Ingham
Photographs by Ian Adamson (Please see https://www.facebook.com/media/set?set=oa.4177053585887283&type=3 for all of Ian's photographs)

The whole town of Donaghadee was buzzing on Saturday as the Dee travelled up by coach to the Kingspan Stadium to take on Omagh 2s in the final of the Gordon West Cup. The team had gathered in Pier 36 for breakfast and were handed their shirts by ex-international Eddie Grant and past President John Blewitt.

The Dee had several players returning from injury but, unfortunately, Rudi Ioasa had not recovered in time and Daniel Ondswedder was unavailable. The Dee were to lose another player during the warm up with Ali Lockhart having to withdraw with a hamstring injury meaning a reshuffle in the backline with Danny McBride on the wing and Morgan Paulin coming on to the bench.

As the team ran onto the pitch they were greeted by a huge cheer from the hundreds of Dee spectators that had turned up to support their team. The Dee got off to a good start when Omagh were penalised at a ruck and Matthew Pentland slotted over the kick to give Dee a 3-0 lead.

Dee’s defensive qualities were tested on numerous occasions over the next 15 minutes but proved to be excellent as both forwards and backs forced Omagh back on their heels time after time with some massive hits. On the 18th minute mark Dee had a scrum just outside the Omagh 22. The ball was moved to Matthew Stockton and dummy runs by both Paul Johnston and Robbie Ingham allowed Harry McCracken to go on an arcing run and then send Danny McBride storming down the wing. As he was tackled just short of the line he managed to pass inside to Aaron McKee who dived over to touchdown in the corner. The difficult conversion was missed but the Dee now had an 8-0 lead.

On the half hour Dee’s task became more difficult when the referee judged that the Dee defender had made a tip tackle and sent him to the bin. Omagh immediately took advantage of the Dee’s misfortune and registered their first score of the day. After the forwards pummelled the line for several phases the ball was kicked wide and the Omagh winger gathered and scored an unconverted try to close the deficit to 3 points. As the half came to a close Pentland pulled a penalty attempt wide, however, he made amends a couple of minutes later when he was successful with a more difficult kick. This gave the Dee a fully deserved half time lead, 11-5.

With only 3 minutes of the second half over Omagh went ahead for the first time. They set up a driving maul from a line out 5 meters from the Dee line and when it was stopped just short the referee penalised the Dee for collapsing and awarded a penalty try. To make matters worse a Dee forward was yellow carded for this infringement forcing the Dee coaching staff to do some reorganising in the forwards, Sam Moore moving into the front row and Owen Roberts coming off the bench into the second row. To their credit the Dee stayed positive and continued to play great attacking rugby with McCracken in particular causing Omagh all sorts of problems with his pace.

However, disaster struck in the 50th minute when during a promising attacking move from the Dee the ball was intercepted by the Omagh fullback who ran from his own half to score an opportunist try. The conversion was successful to increase Omagh’s lead to 19-11.

Dee did not let their heads drop and continued to fight hard to keep Omagh from increasing their lead with the back row of Ryan Butler, Bryn McCartney and Sam Ingham leading the tackle count.

As the game entered the final quarter the referee harshly penalised a Dee forward for a perceived high tackle and to the bewilderment of the Dee support sent him to the sinbin. Five minutes later the referee levelled up the numbers when an Omagh player went to the bin for an infringement at a ruck. This seemed to rejuvenate the Dee’s effort and soon after they made it a one-point game. Yet another storming run by the inspirational Ray Dobson took play deep into the Omagh half. Further drives by Ryan Butler, Robbie Ingham and Nathan Boyd took the Dee closer to the line before Boyd offloaded superbly to Dylan Robinson who showed great strength to force his way over in the corner. Pentland was successful with the touchline conversion to take the score to 19-18 to Omagh.

With ten minutes remaining the vocal Dee support were sensing victory as Dee had all the momentum but, unfortunately, disaster struck again when Omagh intercepted a pass inside their own 22 and this time it was their out-half who sprinted the length of the field to score under the posts. Dee continued to push for further scores, with captain Matthew Stockton and centre partner Paul Johnston to the fore, but Omagh held out in the final few minutes to win the game 26-18.

Although Dee were obviously disappointed to lose the final they can be extremely proud of their performance on the day and the huge travelling support showed their appreciation.

After such an effort it was extremely difficult to single out one individual for man of the match. A special mention to the ageless Davy Skipp who completed a full 80 minutes on the Kingspan but the award this week goes to player coach Ray Dobson who was magnificent throughout the game and continues to be a real inspiration to the young lads around him.

Dee are back in League action next week as they take on league leaders Larne at Donaldson Park , k.o 2.30pm