Thornbury Tour Match

High School were pleased to welcome Thornbury RFC ( somewhere near Bristol for the Geography buffs ) to Greenisland for the second match in their tour to Northern Ireland. Thornbury have a number of connections with home turf through Euan Forsythe originally from Markethill ,Nigel Murray who hails from Enniskillen and Mike Tinney from Londonderry. The connection to Belfast High School is with the club Vice Chairman Roy Black, a former pupil of the school, circa 1970 vintage . Roy went on to play for CIYMS , Loughborough Colleges and laterally Nottingham . 

Thornbury currently  operate as a Level 7 club playing in the Western Counties North League involving teams from Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bath and Bristol. Details of the club can be found on their website   www.Thornburyrfc.com

The game itself got underway on a firm dry pitch with the visitors taking the field in determined fashion even though some were clearly battling the effects of the previous days touring indulgence. High School were missing a couple of regulars but their places were well filled by Mark Marno at prop , Jonny Terit in the second row and Jonny Price in the back row.

High School were first to get a score on the board after 5 minutes of play when David Mayne broke through finishing off in his usual style. Tim Murphy converted . A further three converted tries were scored by Stephen Morton and Neil Hastings who got two before Thornbury got on the score sheet through a well taken converted try (converted by Mavis ). 

At this stage it was clear that High School were too strong for the visitors particularly in the backline and with a further two converted tries added before the half time break (Pete Taylor and Jonny Price ) the way was clear to introduce other members of the squad in the second half .

The second half got underway with a number of changes having been made by both teams. The second half was much more balanced with Thornbury having more of the possession and creating more opportunities for themselves. The difficulty for the referee was keeping track of the numbers of Thornbury players on the pitch. At one point there were seventeen !. 

In the second half High School scored a further two converted tries both by Stephen Morton giving him a total of three on the day. The last of these came from a stunning break by Mark Marno who saw the gap and sailed through creating the space for Morty to finish. 

This was a match played in typical tour spirit by visitors and home team alike but it was only the forerunner to a great day watching Ireland beat England ( third time in a row) to secure the Triple Crown and a super nights craic that followed. 

The only cloud was an injury to Davy Henry which is likely to put him out for the remainder of the season. 

Belfast High School FP  would wish to extend their best wishes to the Players and Officials of Thornbury RFC and in particular High School Old Boy Roy Black, and look forward to renewing acquaintances sometime in the future. 

MATCH   FACTS 

BHS             TRIES      8  ( S Morton 3 , N Hastings 2 , D Mayne , P Taylor , J Price ) 

                     CONVS   8  ( T Murphy ) 

THORN      TRIES      2

                     CONVS   1

Labor Ipse Voluptas