League leaders St.Mary’s were the visitors to a soggy Ballymacarn Park on Saturday and were in no mood to join in the Christmas cheer being enjoyed in the clubhouse as supporters sat down to a festive feast. They travelled with a settled side untroubled by the vagaries of the club versus province horse trading behind the scenes and ground out a victory which underlined their credentials as bona fide title contenders.

Adam Craig has seen his plans decimated by injury to key personnel over the past few weeks and Bradley Luney was the latest withdrawal on the eve of the match after confirmation that he has a significant knee injury and will be out until well into the New Year. There was however good news with the return of Reuben Crothers in the back row while in the backs Paul Kerr moved to centre in the absence of the injured Mark Best and James Humphreys continued at outhalf.

Ballynahinch played into the elements in the first half and showed superb defensive resilience as despite being pinned inside their own 22 for large parts of the opening quarter they made a succession of goal line stands to keep their Dublin opponents out. However they failed to keep the ball on their rare forays upfield and were under significant pressure at the set piece.

The deadlock was broken when a missed tackle in midfield allowed hard-carrying number 8 Ronan Watters to surge towards the posts and over the line with the help of his team mates. The rest of the half remained scoreless and the home side turned around knowing that the points were within their grasp given the conditions. However their set piece continued to misfire and they failed to kick themselves into good field position, allowing St.Mary’s to apply pressure and when the league leaders gained a foothold near the Ballynahinch line they turned their scrum supremacy into a pushover try from Watters, despite the strong suggestion of a knock-on as the ball flew out of the scrum. A fourteen point deficit was always going to be difficult to overcome in wet conditions and as the game drew to a close St.Mary’s looked the more likely side to score as they maintained their place at the top of the table.

The 2nd XV continued their unbeaten season with a 64-0 drubbing of Clogher Valley to maintain their position at the top of the league.

Mike Evans and his band of 4th XV warriors finished the first phase of their league campaign top of the pile with a big win over Dungannon.

The Women’s Junior Cup semi-final and all youth fixtures fell foul of the weather.