At the weekend, Vagabonds and Douglas certainly provided a match to mark the Manx Cup finale in style at Ballafletcher.
Douglas fielded a mixed team of players on the fringe of first team action and up and coming youngsters alongside a core of regulars.
Whilst Vagabonds had a familiar Douglas face in their own squad where flanker Miguel Costa, a student in Liverpool, donned the black, white and yellow as a helpful hand.
Manx Cup
A large crowd, many emanating from Port-e-Chee where breakfast at 11am kicked off a sun-kissed day, remained absorbed until the final whistle.
It took Douglas five minutes to cut loose, sending Kyle Martin scorching over, only for Matty Jones to charge through for a tenth minute try and Dan Bonwick’s conversion dialling up an unexpected 7-5 lead.
But from that point on, Douglas put their foot on the gas to disappear over the horizon by half time.
Centre James Ross via a Richard Bell assist, flanker Mark Oldfield, skipper Blake Snell, Nathan Robson, Martin again and Harry Hewson all plundered tries from varying distances, and with Robson planting four conversions, a 7-43 lead threatened to obliterate the home side.
Littered Field
Conor Garland in rampaging form at prop littered the field with prospective tacklers in his wake, and Robert Todd, making his second appearance of the day, raised the touchline noise.
Oldfield added his second early in the second period, and Adam Kinvig underlined his future promise with a surging run to the line.
It wasn’t all one-way traffic though, as Jones rattled through for his second score, and centre George Hotchkiss was proving to be a thorn in Douglas’ side in attack and defence.
Defence Open
Cam Findlay scored a peach of a try with a searing 60th-minute break down centre field to split the Douglas defence wide open, and Bonwick’s conversion brought up 19 points.
Bell thundered over and through defenders on his way to a well deserved try, and Brendan Kelly ran a smart supporting line to blaze through before Bell added a second to underscore his most successful season to date.
Even with Garland blotting his Man of the Match copybook with a yellow card, Douglas remained in charge for the closing minutes before excellent referee Joe Quinn called time.
The final score was Vagabonds 19 – 74 Douglas.
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