Derriaghy face vital game

On Saturday, Derriaghy slumped to their seventh defeat in Ulster Bank League One this season and now find themselves joint second bottom and in danger of relegation.

They do, however, this Saturday visit Bangor, who sit on the same number of points as the Queensway men, in what will be a vital match.

At home to Carrick last week, they were again without Indian player/coach Alfie Aphale and they certainly missed his contribution.

With rain forecast and the very likely prospect of the innings being reduced, Matty Jennings inserted the visitors.

Unfortunately, the home bowlers found the strong batting line-up in top form on a perfect batting pitch and despite the interruption for rain, racked up an impressive 360 for eight.

J Holmes (130), I Kamtekar (100) and M Gilmour (82) did most of the damage while C Lewis three for 77, M Stinson two for 58 and Wayne Hughes two for 63 picked up the wickets.

With further interruptions for rain, the Duckworth/Lewis system pushed the run rate required up to around eight so the home batsmen knew they had to go for it from the start if they were to have any chance.

Bailey (28), P Bell (49), Lewis (41) and Stinson (38) all made useful contributions but this was not enough and eventually the innings closed on 252 leaving Carrick winners on Duckworth Lewis by 78 runs.

Seconds

Meanwhile, the Second XI recorded another fine win, this time at Ballymena.

Batting first, the Derriaghy men rattled up 225 for five from their 40 overs with Ross Mulholland hitting a superb 65, Kingsley Beckett 57, Dean Ferris 26 and Stuart McAllister finishing on 28 not out.

The home side were never really in the hunt and were shot out for 142 with Ryan Stewart, Daniel Ballantyne, S McAllister and S Gilmore among the wicket takers.

This Saturday, the Seconds are at home to Academy while the thirds travel to the same opponents’ Third XI.

U15s

On Friday night, Derriaghy Under 15s travelled to Lurgan for their latest match with a significantly weakened team but despite a respectable batting performance, they lost by 34 runs against a strong side.

The home side batted first and with some regular bowlers missing and some fielding errors, they amassed a total of 170 from their 20 overs, both C Gibson and M Lyttle recording fifties.

There was, however, some respectable and economical figures of 0-24 from four overs from Reece Malone and 0-8 from two overs from Johnny Lynch.

The Derriaghy reply started in similar fashion to Lurgan and for a large part of the time, they matched the Lurgan scoring rate.

Michael Jones hit a rapid 50 and Josh Cardosi scored 32 but in the end four run outs and the absence of some of the more experience batsmen limited the score to 136-9.