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fifteen metres the maul was toppled and the ball fed back to the visiting scrum-half.
    He fed it out to his backs and the left winger wassuddenly facing Alan. The Castlerock winger was slow reading the situation and when his opponent turned back inside he was left grasping fresh air.
    With the field wide open the St Ignatius winger sprinted for the line, but just as he moved to dive over for a try he was hit with an almighty thump on his right thigh. He toppled sideways, but his attempt to throw the ball back was haywire and it flew into touch.
    ‘Thanks Eoin,’ puffed Alan, as he raced past the full-back into his position. ‘That was some tackle.’
    From the line-out Castlerock scrambled back the ball and out-half Harry Deacon cleared it up-field.
    Eoin was getting warmed up now and had enjoyed making the tackle, although his shoulder blades were starting to smart a bit.
    Once play settled down it seemed that the visitors’ pack wasn’t as formidable as it looked, although they continued to win plenty of the line-outs.
    Mr Carey was refereeing, and he was hard on his own team’s mistakes, awarding several penalties against Castlerock within kicking range. Luckily the visitors’ kicker was hopeless with anything that wasn’t straight in front of the posts and he scored just two out of six, giving his team a narrow 6-3 lead at half time.
    St Ignatius changed their kicker after the break, bringing on a small, wiry fellow who was stuck out on the wing. He was a poor handler and missed several tackles, but he was a gifted goal-kicker. With ten minutes left he had single handedly extended his team’s lead to 15-3 with three penalty goals from three attempts.
    Castlerock were starting to flag, but at a break in play Rory gathered the team around him.
    ‘Come on ’Rock, we can do this,’ said the little scrum-half . Those big guys are knackered now. We can push them around the park and get back in this game. No kicking for touch – they’re hammering us in the line-outs – so let’s try to get the ball out to the backs and get some moves going.’
    From the next scrum, just inside St Ignatius’s half, the ball was duly worked back to Rory, who fed Harry. The out-half shrugged off two tackles as he made his way into the 22. He was floored by the full-back, but got the ball off to Alan who sprinted as hard as he could for the corner.
    Just before he reached the flag he saw one of the St Ignatius ogres coming towards him at speed. He immediately turned back inside and slipped the ball to Eoin who was right on his shoulder.
    With a powerful dive Castlerock’s newest star flew over the goal-line for the first try of his short rugby career.
    Eoin picked himself up to see Mr Carey’s beaming grin and Rory slapping him on the back. ‘Great try, Madden,’ said the scrum-half as the conversion sailed over the bar to make it 15-10, ‘now let’s get back quickly and try to win this.’
    Rory was proved right about the St Ignatius pack, which seemed to have run out of steam. Scrum after scrum was won before Castlerock worked themselves into a strong position with two minutes left.
    Disastrously, Rory’s pass out to Harry fell short and went to ground, where the visitors’ flanker pounced on the ball. The ruck led to the ball coming back to St Ignatius and an attack was on. Their out-half danced through three tackles before he turned to spin a long pass out to the outside centre.
    Eoin spotted what the out-half was trying to do and sprinted like a greyhound between the St Ignatius’s backs, snapping the ball out of the air.
    Stunned, the visitors’ backs turned and chased hard as Eoin headed for their line. With only the full back to beat, Eoin veered out to the right.
    As he raced towards the line he realised he was heading for the corner. Remembering what Alan had taught him about making the kicker’s job easier, he took one step back to his left and completely wrong-footed thefull back, who slipped and fell