The Dee’s team sheet showed a few changes due to injury and unavailability. Another new centre partnership saw Davy Kirkpatrick teaming up with Johnny Moore and Ethan Martin made his 1st XV debut on the wing. Paul Miller and Garry Smith, who were making their first appearances of the season, both started on the bench along with Ollie McCormac.

The moist conditions caused by the constant drizzle was going to make handling difficult for both teams and the team that made the fewer mistakes were going to come out on top. The first 15 minutes of the game was mostly played in the middle of the park with both sides unable to put together any real attacking opportunities. In the 17th minute it was the home team that got on the scoreboard first when their outhalf kicked deep into the corner and the winger won the race to touchdown. The kick was missed to leave the score 5 -0 to Virginia.

A few minutes later the Dee were awarded a penalty just outside the Virginia 22 and Matthew Pentland slotted over the kick to cut the deficit to 2 points. Five minutes later another effort from almost the same spot was unfortunately pushed wide of the posts to deny the Dee the lead.

For the next ten minutes the Dee had most of the possession but were not clinical enough to add to the score due to a number of basic errors. Just prior to half time a Dee forward was shown a yellow card for a high tackle, however, due to a well organised Dee defence Virginia were not able to take advantage of their numerical advantage. In fact, it was the Dee who had the momentum and they were unlucky not to score when Ray Dobson crashed over the line but the referee judged that the ball had been held up.

In the 14th minute of the half it was Virginia’s turn to go down to 14 when one of their forwards saw yellow for an indiscretion at a ruck. A minute later Virginia extended their lead when their No 9 was allowed to waltz his way down the middle of the park and then sent his winger under the posts for a converted try to push the score to 12-3.

Sam Ingham then rallied his troops and lead by example as the Dee made their way into Virginia’s 22. After a plethora of rucks the ball was eventually fed out to Davy Kirkpatrick who managed to squeeze over in the corner. The difficult conversion was missed to leave the score at 12-8.

The last 15 minutes of the game saw both teams have opportunities to score. The Dee probably had the majority of those but a couple of knock ons or final passes not going to hand scuppered their chances. It was the home team who managed to get over the line after they made good ground against a tiring Dee defence. The successful conversion pushed the score to 19-8 and although Dee tried hard in the dying minutes to get a score for a losing bonus point it was not to be as the Ref blew for full time.

On a positive note, young Ethan Martin impressed on his debut, Dylan Robinson put in a great shift in the front row and the ever-improving Ryan Butler was an easy choice for man of the match.

However, it was a frustrating day for the Dee as this was a game that they really should have won and it is important that they use training wisely this week to sharpen their skills before their game against Strabane next week at Donaldson Park, k.o.2.30pm.