Inst warm up for cup with convincing win

Cometh the New Year and the cometh the result, Coleraine Inst would play Larne Grammar School in what was seen by many as a one-sided affair.

Coleraine Inst were the much superior team in this meeting, running out 70-7. Inst ran in twelve tries, five of which were converted to leave a Larne Grammar side, still looking for only their second win of the season.

Inst began the game receiving the possession and the team were able to break up field and score inside the first three minutes of the game through Prop Daniel McAllister which out-half Shiels converted. Inst began to get into their stride fairly quickly and tries from Peter Kidd and Oliver McDowell soon followed, one of which was converted by Shiels.

The fourth Inst try was probably one of their finest of the game and possibly the season. From the kick-off, backrow Mark Gordon gathered the ball to break two tackles and offload to the ever present Daniel McAllister who ran 30 metres offloading to backrower Oliver McDowell who in turn fed the ball to centre Johnny Crowe, who fixed the last man before giving the ball to fullback Cameron Fulton to score a sensational team try. The conversion was pushed to the right but Inst still led by 24-0. The final try of the half came from wing Joel Stanbridge who collected a loose clearance kick at halfway and beat a number of defenders to dot down in the corner. Inst went into the Half-time leading 29-0.

Unfortunately for the away side, things didn’t get much better in the second half, with seven more tries added to the score line. The first of which came from winger Bradley Dempster who scored a juicy try, converted by Fulton. Dempster’s second followed quickly to which Fulton also converted. But Larne did get a try of their own after Shiels threw a speculative pass to allow a Larne player to pick the ball out of the air to run 70 metres and score.

This joy was short-lived with Inst regaining possession and scoring their eighth try of the game through Cameron Fulton and followed by Dempster scoring his third try before departing for replacement Callum Wallace. It wasn’t long until he was busy, scoring within ten minutes of coming on after good handling out wide. Captain Nick Logan back after a long injury layoff was able to return to his number 8 position at halftime and got back to scoring ways, scoring of the back of a five metres scrum.

The final try of the game came from Centre Johnny Crowe who spotted the Larne outhalf’s eye to switch the kick-off to give their team a chance of regaining their own kick off. It was Crowe who spotted it and sprinted ten metres to out jump two Larne players and sprint all of 60 metres to score in the corner. The conversion was missed from Fulton and but it didn’t matter, with the game ending in a big win for an ever-improving Coleraine Inst side.