Enniskillen first XV achieved a convincing win and an encouraging performance against Lurgan on Saturday in the last of their pre-season friendlies before their Qualifying Two league campaign commences.

And first XV captain Jamie Johnston was very positive about the display.

“It’s great to get another win under our belt but more importantly the performance from the team was excellent. We are becoming more and more familiar with our patterns of play and on Saturday they showed to be really effective.

“The forwards were outstanding in their work rate and physicality. In particular David Taylor and David Buchanan carried really well. All the forwards carried aggressively and rucked efficiently, this built a solid foundation for the backs to play off.

“The back play was also exceptional, with Nick Finlay and James Ferguson showing how dangerous they can be in open play and Ashley Finlay displaying some sensational counter attack. There is a great feeling around the club at the minute, everyone is working hard and it shows in our performances. We are really looking forward to getting stuck into the league now.” Skins looked set to dominate from the start with a constant wave of attacking phases in the Lurgan half; a rapid run by Ashley Finlay followed by an offload to Kaine Holden setting up the first try of the game.

The next score followed soon after with aggressive forward carrying inside the Lurgan 22 metre allowing Jamie Johnston to crash over the line.

The return of Nick Finlay at out-half seemed to galvanise the backline with swift distribution allowing Jack Harte and James Ferguson in the centres to constantly break the gain line. This was aptly displayed when a back line move off the back of a scrum saw Ashley Finlay score in the corner.

The game then looked to be out of sight when dexterous running by James Ferguson resulted in try number four. Lurgan soon staged some unexpected retaliation, exploiting a gap in the Enniskillen defence around the edge of the ruck to register their first score before the end of the half.

The second half was a much more equal affair with good tactical kicking from Lurgan keeping Enniskillen from threatening their try line quite so much.

Great forward play from Enniskillen allowed David Buchanan to put Johnston away for his second try while a long range run from James Ferguson set the final score at 40-7 with an excellent individual try.

Unfortunately scrums were uncontested due to Lurgan missing some personnel which may have taken a valuable weapon away from the Skins arsenal, additionally the line out didn’t function quite as well as in previous games but the open play was as good as we’ve seen from Enniskillen.

Meanwhile the second XV faced some tough competition at the weekend in City of Derry’s George Tees pre-season tournament.

Some excellent individual performances were on show to put plenty of pressure on the first XV personnel, a good week of training will see the seconds very confident going into their first game of the season this Saturday, 2.30pm at home against Cavan in the annual Fletcher-Pollock cup game.

Enniskillen first XV now have a weekend off to prepare for their first league game, at home against Lisburn on Saturday September 13.