Derry aim for cup glory

The Judges Road men defeated Armagh last Saturday at the Palace Grounds and seal a bonus point victory to retain their position as leaders of the Ulster Senior League.

Armagh defeated Ards convincingly 30-7 in the first round of the Cup, while Mark Nicholl’s side had a bye.

The last time the teams played one another in a Cup competition was in the season 2009-2010 when they contested the AIL Ireland Junior Cup Final in a dramatic encounter in Athlone.

Derry looked dead and buried trailing by five points deep in injury time, the last play of the game from their own 22 metre line saw hooker Jason Mitchell throw a wonder pass to Mark O’Connor on the wing who got in for a try in the corner to level the scores. O’Connor kicked the conversion from the touchline to seal an incredible victory amid wild celebrations.

Derry have played Armagh eleven times in recent times and the result has been ten victories to the Judges Road out-fit.

The encounters have been hard and fairly fought with some memorable close encounters when Armagh should have been victorious on a number of occasions but managed to seal defeat from the jaws of victory. Derry defeated Armagh in a playoff to stay in All Ireland Division 3 in the season 2006-2007 at Judges Road. Armagh looked destined for victory but three late tries by dual status players James Moore, Colin Mitchell and Keith Gallick gave Derry a 18-12.

The other memorable contest between these two great rivals was in the season 2009-2010 when both teams finished level on points at the end of their league campaigns. The two teams had a winner takes all playoff on a Monday night at Shaws Bridge in Belfast before a massive crowd for a Junior rugby fixture.

It was one of the most physical but fair games either of the teams would have experienced but Derry were victorious winning 17-7.

Derry took five serious injuries from the game into their All Ireland League Round Robin playoff against Seapoint at Judges Road the following Saturday and were beaten. This seriously dented Derry’s chances of promotion to All Ireland League Division 3. The team re-grouped and went on to defeat Monivea and Richmond and setup an emotional playoff victory when they defeated Portadown at Chambers Park to regain AIL Status.

City of Derry had made a number of changes for that fixture with David Ferguson, Steven Jefferson, Richard Baird, Adam Parke, David Graham and Peter Henderson returning to the team. Richard Baird and Chris Shields both came off injured and will be rested this weekend. The feature of that game was the performance of Captain David Funston who played at open side wing forward for the first time and produced a Man of the Match performance.

The home supporters will be looking forward to seeing this new development this Saturday in what should be another close encounter between these two great rivals.

City of Derry Squad: Sam Duffy, Cathal Cregan, David Ferguson, Gareth Beattie, Sam McAuley, Paul McFeely, Steven Jefferson, James Fawcett Brian Prue, David Houston, Adam Bratton, Tom Patton, Stephen Corr, Andrew Semple, Richard Peoples, Adam Parke, Richard McCarter, Simon Logue, Ryan Campbell, David Funston, Josh Lewis, Peter Henderson, Jack Caithness.