Dungannon too strong for Thirds

The Braidmen never got going until the second quarter of the match, by which time they were 33 points to nil down.

The well organised Dungannon pack drove over for two early scores, followed by two scores coming from excellent handling and good vision from the outside half.

The fifth try came from a charged down kick from a scrum which left the Ballymena side with a huge mountain to climb

However the second quarter was a different story. The away side’s pack began to exert some influence in the game, especially in the set piece and with John Nicholl running things at 10 and a pacy back three of Alan Goodrich, Ali McCosh and Peter Gregg there were sure to be tries.

The first came from Brian McGookin driving over in close after a series of phases on the Dungannon line. Nicholl added the extras and then a few minutes later drilled a penalty deep into Dungannon territory.

From the resulting lineout the backline executed a perfect move leaving Goodrich to fly over in the corner, Nicholl again adding the conversion. Dungannon scored a breakaway just before the halftime whistle to leave the score 38-14 at the break

The second half started in much the same vein as the first ended, with Ballymena in the ascendancy. Dungannon scored two more tries over the half, both against the run of play.

Ballymena could not convert their possession into points, however when Chris Allen and Richard Montgomery were sin binned late on, the Braidmen galvanised and almost scored again, being held up on the line.

Ballymena can take a lot of positives from this game but they cannot afford to start so poorly if they are to mount any kind of challenge this season.

Thirds: R Adair, B McGookin, R Montgomery, J Archer, T Montgomery, A Swann, K Lamont, C Allen, R McGreer, J Nicholl, A McCosh, I Darcy, S McMaster (Captain), P Gregg, A Goodrich.