Portugal 2009
A touring party of 36 left Banbridge on Friday morning heading for Albufeira. The numbers of players had dropped from 29 to 23 and this was deemed suitable for a game, that was until we found out that a round robin 3 team tournament had been arranged! The games would take place on Saturday, the kick off time put back until 4.30pm to give the Blue Sox players a chance to acclimatize.
Departure morning. Three missing from photo! Good start!
So the destination on Saturday was Loule. A hard dry pitch was expected but the opposite was the case. Any rugby club would have been proud of the pitch and it certainly outdoes quite a few in Ulster! Green and well watered, only players and officials allowed near the playing surface and certainly no glasses or liquid other than water.
Banns first game was against the homeside Loule who had quite a voiciferous home support. This was a game that the Blue Sox could have wrapped up in the first half but a few handling errors saw try chances go begging. But in the end tries from Chris Nelmes and Derek Moorhead with two Viljoen conversions saw Banbridge who finished the game with 14 players following a yellow card win 14 - 0.
Unfortunately the draw did not favour Bann and 10 minutes later the Blue Sox were back in action against Rugby da Linha who play a league above Loule in the Portugeese 1st Division. This was a much tighter affair and both sides had opportunites to score but the defence from both sides was excellent. The Blue Sox made the breakthrough when scrumhalf McQuitty made space on the left wing to feed Andy Kennedy who barged over. Viljoen narrowly missed the conversion and the Blue Sox held on to take the game and the tournament 5 - 0.
The final game saw da Linha beat Loule for the second / third place play off.
Match day. Only two missing from this snap. Getting better.
The tourists were; C Broderick, P Cairns, D Chambers, B Clinghan, A Cowan, S Cowan, K Eadie, M Ferguson, D Ferris, M Fisher, A Fulton, S Gilmore, A Hewitson, S Jackson, A Kennedy, A Lewis, M Lewis, G Little, J Little, S Marshall, R Martin, J McCrum, Barry McKevitt, P McQuaid, M McQuitty, D Moorhead, W Moran, C Nelmes, S Oldham, M Oliver, G Scott, N Thompson, F Viljoen, M Waugh, S Wickie and R Wilson
Captain for both matches was Wayne Moran.
Some of the home crowd.
Match advertisement poster.
