Five try City of Derry set up winner take all Junior Cup tie with Queen's victory

Richard McCarter's men recovered from a slow start to hit a brace of tries either side of half-time and take charge of the game at 12-31 with little over 10 minutes to go. However, Derry's now customary late 'wobble' almost allowed the Students back into the tie as the hosts brought it back to 24-31 with two tries in five minutes before Derry regained their composure to register their fifth of the day and finally make the game safe.

The result leaves Derry and Cooke joint top of the group with two five point wins from two and facing a deciding final group fixture in January.

"That's two from two. We beat Banbridge in the first group game so basically, yeah, the winner of our third game against Cooke will top the group and go through to the semi-final," explained Derry Head Coach Richard McCarter.

"It was a good team performance. We got off to a slow start and were nine points down midway though the opening half but then scored a couple of quick tries in the run up to half-time and another couple after the restart. We ended up going from 12-3 down to 12-31 up with about 10 minutes to go.

"We did the usual of allowing Queen's back into it with five minutes remaining but we scored at the end to completely see it off.

"Overall though it was a good performance; five tries and considering the amount of changes we made in the pack, I would be really pleased with the display."

McCarter and Chris Cooper had made a number of personnel changes ahead of a big three weeks for the club with Dromore visiting in the league this weekend and Ballyclare in the All Ireland Junior quarter-final the week after and McCarter was pleased with the contribution of everyone who stepped up.

"We knew the boys we were bringing in were good players but sometimes when you're making a lot of changes at the same time, you're wary it can disrupt things a bit but I have to say the line-out was excellent; the scrum probably wasn't as dominant as it has been but it was still very solid and our general play around the pitch was pretty good.

"Apart from the blip at the end that we are now guilty of allowing to happen too often, it was a pretty good display and we have to be happy with it."

The next fortnight will make it three different competitions in three weeks for the Judges Road men and McCarter is delighted to see his players competing on multiple fronts.

"Between Saturday and the next couple of weeks we are involved in three different competition and it's nice to have a different focus every week," he added.

"We are going well in all these competitions too but we'll turn our attentions back to the league on Saturday. We are motoring along nicely and if we can keep this going and get into the far end of these tournaments, it will be great.

"We have two big games coming now and they will really tell us where we are at. If we could win on Saturday it takes us, we are in the top four at the minute, but if we could get a result it really allows us to push on in the league."