Clogher Valley 32-14 Omagh Academicals

Clogher Valley followed up their opening game of the season with a 32-14 win over rivals Omagh Accies at the weekend.

Clogher suffered a narrow 29-27 loss in their first game against Belfast Harlequins but manager Stephen Bothwell was pleased to see his side bounce back with a win on Saturday: “Yeah the second game was a lot more pleasing, we played a lot more on the front foot and there was a big difference from that and the first game we played.

"It was nice to see the progression there. The boys have been back training for a while now and things are starting to work for us.

"We used them as our two pre-season games. Our first game was against Harlequins which we lost by two points.

"We scored six tries against, so, we were well ahead, we missed a few conversions but we were well ahead in the points tally, I thought we were good for our win.

"I was pleased with our performance considering it was the second game. It’s pleasing to see some of the stuff we are working on at training coming through.”

Clogher began their scoring on Saturday with a good break in the centre of the field as Paul Armstrong offloaded the ball to Luke Rusell who carried before finding Jake Woods as he was met with a good tackle.

Russell picked up the ball and quickly ran over the line for the game’s first try. It was a deserved score for Valley who started the game well as they controlled the ball for large parts of the opening moments.

Aaron Crawford added a second try in the first-half with a good maul score for the home side.

A long kick from Omagh saw the ball drop into the hands of Armstrong and he broke out in space to find Karl Bothwell who made good distance before feeding back inside for Armstrong to run in and score.

Taine Hare’s kick was gathered by Michael Bothwell and he was tackled as Matthew Bothwell took possession and got over the line.

Luke Russell was awarded Player of the Match as Clogher made a winning start at home.