Braidmen edge ever closer to promotion

Andy Graham’s side edged home 19-17 thanks to an injury-time try from Adrian Hamilton which lifts Ballymena to second spot in the table with a game in hand over their promotion rivals.

Old Crescent find themselves facing relegation and with home advantage came out fighting.

Their mounting pressure on the visitors defensive line earned them two early penalties from which saw them take a 6-0 lead.

Ballymena started to fight their way into the game and with 25 minutes on the clock, the Braidmen put a great back line move together for winger Darrell Montgomery to finish in the corner. David O’Hara added the touch line conversion to take the lead 6-7.

The second half started the same as the first half with early pressure from the home side and after a break down the wing deep into Ballymena territory, Ballymena’s ill discipline yielded another penalty and Old Crescent restored their lead 9-7.

Ballymena found themselves going further behind after the Old Crescent backs broke the visitors line to score in the corner. The touch line conversion was missed but the home side’s lead was extended to 14-7.

With time ticking away the Ballymena side didn’t panic and went about getting themselves back into the game.

The dominant Ballymena scrum and line out was given the backs a good platform to attack from and take the game deep into the home sides half.

It was from one of these scrums that Ballymena scored their second try as number eight Adrian Hamilton picked the ball up and exploded from the back of the scrum eating up 10 metres to to score to the side of the posts. David O’Hara slotted the easiest kick of the game over to level the score 14-14.

In the final ten minutes but it was the home side making the most of the strong cross field winds and after a booming kick deep into the Ballymena half the visitors were penalised trying to run the ball out of their half. The Old Crescent out-half added the penalty to bring the score to 17-14 which looked like the winning kick.

The Braid men rallied behind the posts and after a few words they made their way to the half way line for the restart.

From the restart Ballymena showed the guts and determination that they have shown all season to win the ball back.

They set up several drives to get deep into the visitors half and recycled the ball over and over again until Adrian Hamilton powered his way over again in the corner in the 85th minute to win the game.

David O’Hara’s touch line kick missed its target and the game finished 17-19 to a very jubilant visiting team.

Ballymena now sit in second place with three games left, the first of them sees them make the short journey to Magherafelt this Saturday to take on Rainey Old Boys.