The match of the weekend involved the meeting at Pirrie Park of Methodist College and Royal Belfast Academical Institution.
Rudolph Benade landed a penalty to put the home side into a 3-0 lead. Royal Belfast Academical Institution came back strongly and enjoyed the majority of territorial possession for the remainder of the first half with the Methody team suffering from having two players sin binned during this period.
The pressure eventually told after 25 minutes when RBAI hooker James Carruthers broke from a maul to put his team into a 5-3 lead. Methody forced their way back and captain Rory Winters crossed to restore the home side’s lead with the last play of the half. Benade converted from wide to leave the halftime score at 10-5.
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In the second half the Methody pack took control and dominated at the scrum and the breakdown with James Harrison, Christopher Gracey, Dan Bingham and Rory Winters taking the game to the Belfast Inst pack. Despite playing against the wind they forced Inst onto the defensive and eventually increased their lead when Harrison forced his way over from close range.
Methody increased their lead when Harrison crossed for his second try of the game. Again, the conversion attempt was not successful but the Methody team had a 20-5 lead. Patrick Colhoun beat two despairing Inst defenders to score beside the posts, allowing Benade to easily convert. The final score read 27-5.
Ballyclare High School travelled to play a midweek game against the currently undefeated Limavady Grammar School on Wednesday 19th October.
Ballyclare scored a try through Paddy Reid but Limavady tries from Aaron Rainey John Fallows contributed to a 16-5 win for the home side as they maintained their unbeaten record.
Next up for the Ballyclare High School team was a trip to play Wallace High School on Saturday 22nd October. David Scott took advantage of a dropped ball to run 80 metres and give Wallace a 7-0 lead. Ballyclare responded well and dominated the rest of the first half scoring tries through Paddy Reid, Man of the Match Jonny Darling, Jonny Holmes and James Beattie. Jack Irvine kicked one conversion as well as a penalty to give his team a 25-7 halftime lead.
The second half saw Wallace stage something of a comeback scoring tries through Matthew Ballentyne and Josh Ard. However, Paddy Reid scored his second, and his team’s fifth to hand Ballyclare a 32-19 victory.
Carrickfergus Grammar School entertained Grosvenor Grammar School with a Lewis Patton try giving the visitors an 8-3 lead.
Grosvenor dominated proceedings with Matthew Allen scoring one try, Ben Coard scoring two and Dale Stinson completing his hat-trick. Stewart Baillie also kicked three conversions they ran out 3-39 winners.
Coleraine Academical Institution hosted Banbridge Academy and had to work hard to achieve a 19-7 victory.
Jonny Crowe scored a try for the home side ten minutes into the game from his own half. Banbridge Academy came back strongly and their second row forward Alex Thompson took advantage of some poor Coleraine defence to score under the posts, and level the score at 7-7. Second half touchdowns from David McIntyre and Peter Kidd handed Coleraine a 19-7 win.
Royal School Armagh travelled to play St Gerard’s College in Dublin and returned home having recorded a resounding 36-5 victory.
The seeds for this win were sown in the first half with the Royal School team scoring tries through Ali Wright, Matthew Clarke who touched down twice, Duncan Stead and Daniel Reaney. Ali Wright added four conversions to give his team a 33-0 lead at the interval.
Ali Wright added a second half penalty while the home team scored a consolation try to leave the final score reading 36-5 in favour of the RS Armagh team. Playing in only his second ever game of the RS Armagh 1st XV, Chris McCreanor turned in a Man of the Match performance.
Royal School Dungannon started strongly in their home match against Belfast Royal Academy.
After a series of drives, Adam Clarke forced his way over for the first try of the game. Dungannon continued to pressurise the BRA defence and scored a second try prior to the interval when Peter Cashel took advantage of a good interchange of play, involving both forwards and backs, to run in for an unconverted try and give his team a 12-0 lead at halftime.
The visitors started the second half strongly but Peter Cashel scored his second try after some neat play. The loss of Andrew Clingan to injury impacted on the home in the final quarter of the game and the visitors ran in two tries through Daniel Dass and David Patterson. Neither try was converted leaving Dungannon as deserved 17-10 winners.
Also on Saturday, Ballymena Academy made the journey to Newtownards for the annual fixture against Regent House.
In the first half Ballymena failed to capitalise on their dominance of possession and it was Regent who opened the scoring with a Nathan Burns penalty. Just before the break Nicholas Stirling found space in the outside channel and beat several players to push Ballymena into a 7-3 lead.
The home team turned pressure into points in the second half when Nathan Burns rounded several defenders to finish in the corner. He converted his own try to leave the score reading 10-7. Despite some late pressure on the Regent line, Ballymena failed to convert pressure into points and it was a jubilant Regent House team who celebrated their deserved win at the final whistle.
Limavady Grammar School played Rainey Endowed in a tough encounter at the Ballyquin Road venue.
The home team opened their account with a well worked try from Aaron Rainey, his eleventh of the season. Rainey responded positively to this setback and reduced the arrears to 5-3 when Martin Connolly converted a penalty opportunity. However, this was short lived as the Limavady pack started to dominate and after a series of drives Andy Miller crossed for an unconverted try to give his team a 10-3 halftime lead.
The only score of the second half came when John Fallows and Stuart Hull combined to take advantage of a Rainey handling error and score a try. The try was converted to leave the Limavady Grammar School team emerge as 17-3 winners.
