haproxy + virtual hosts + apache 2, 2 sites, 2 backend

[andyc23]

I'm really struggling -

I have a very basic setup:

i have 2 sites (just a folder for downloads for both on the same host)

downloads.xxxx.com site1
downloads.yyyy.com site2

i have 2 frontends, certificates done, and both have acl for matching hosts.
both backends point to the same server port 80.

only site1 works.
I disabled health checks in case related.

On top of this, incase related to header forwarding of the domain for the virtual host, i made it more simple -

I set one of the apache virtual hosts to port 81.

thus backend 1 is: 10.0.5.210:80
backend 2 is: 10.0.5.210:81

I can access both servers via http://10.0.5.210:8X locally just fine.
However it's the exact same issue.. site2 will not work when using the domain name.
Both configurations are identical bar domains + backend port.

Can anyone explain to my what could be wrong?

note: when using different ports - healthcheck shows both backends are up (since different ports).