Clogher Valley go top of the Kukri Ulster Championship Division 1 after thumping CIYMS 54-10 at the Cran. With storm Eunice bringing snow to the Clogher Valley on Saturday morning, there was concerns that another match postponed would leave the league extremely congested. However, an army of Valley supporters turned out to clear the snow from the pitch to ensure the game went ahead. The pitch, whilst playable, was heavy under foot and wasn’t ideal for the fast-flowing style of play Valley supporters have come to see from this team.

The visitors CIYMS who travelled from Belfast are sitting 7th in the league, having been playing a good standard of rugby, but have not been getting the results they have hoped for. CIYMS started well but in customary style, the Valley soaked up the pressure and then pounced, fast passes amongst the backs gave Stuart Brown the space to open the scoring with a well worked try, converted by Paul Armstrong after 13 minutes. CIYMS replied with a penalty to close the gap to 4 points. Ten minutes later Valley doubled their score with a try from Richard Primrose after the pack put significant pressure on CIYMS. Armstrong added the extras. Minutes later, a CIYMS kicked long into the Valley 22, Brown caught the high ball and counter attacked; Regan Wilkinson joined in, popped to Armstrong, who fed David Sharkey who side stepped the CIYMS defender to score under the posts. Armstrong converted for the Valley to lead 21 -3. The Valley was now dominating all aspects of the game. Michael Trainor drove through the opposition pack, offloaded to Callum Smyton who made it easy for the Armstrong conversion by scoring under the posts. Directly from the restart the Valley attacked again, magical interplay between forwards and backs gave David Maxwell the space to sprint in to score in the corner. As the game drifted to half time the Valley switched off for a few moments and allowed the visitors in for a consolidation try to leave the half time score 33-10.

The score before half time gave the visitors hope and they raised their game for a period. In customary style, the Valley soaked the pressure and then pounced. On the 60-minute point, Maxwell slipped the ball to Wilkinson who came in from the blindside wing to score, Armstrong converted, and the Valley led 40 -10. With the match and 5 points secured, the Valley started to play champagne rugby, forwards and backs were off loading balls in the tackle to support players. Armstrong put Wilkinson through a gap in the CIYMS defence, who fixed the full back and then returned the ball to Armstrong to cross the line for his 1st try of the day, which he then converted. Armstrong added another try and conversion to his match tally before the final whistle to give the Valley a 54-10 win. The Valley goes top of the league with 70 points, 4 points ahead of Instonians who have a game in-hand. Clogher Valley are now back on the road again with another mid-week match against Lurgan in the Towns Cup. Elsewhere Valley 2ndXV crushed Ballymoney 59-0 in the Cup and the 3rdXV lost to Inishowen 12-5 in a close fought game at the Cran.