RUCK STARS

The Ballymoney lads caused the shock of the previous round by dispatching Bangor but few outside the town believed they would progress past Campbell College.

However, a superbly organised, talented and committed Dalriada dumped their illustrious hosts out of the competition by 15 points to five.

Their reward is another daunting away tie to either BRA or RBAI on Saturday week.

While both potential opponents boast an excellent rugby pedigree, neither can rest easy ahead of the potential visit of the resurgent Dalriada side.

"At this stage there are no easy draws," said Dalriada's John Devlin.

"Again we go in as underdogs, which suits us.

"Obviously the recent victories have made people stand up and take notice of Dalriada, and rightly so.

"In fact Saturday's result didn't flatter us at all.

"Some of the boys have a few tired limbs so they will rest this week and then we will prepare for the next round as we did against Campbell.

"We are taking it one step at a time at the minute."

The first half of the game was dominated by Dalriada, who straight from the kick off, made their way into the Campbell '22'.

Clever kicking from Cormac McCartney, the Dalriada outhalf, and great running from his fellow backs the, helped Dalriada gain the territorial advantage in the early stages of the game.

The Dalriada forwards held up well against the powerful Campbell pack particularly at scrum time.

The opening score of the game came after 15 minutes when Dalriada won a line out, in the Campbell '22' through Roger Bonnar. The ball reached Dalriada scrum half, Stuart Nevin, who combined with McCartney to put Ben Henderson into space.

Henderson was tackled just short of the Campbell line but managed to off load the ball to the waiting hands of Lee Ballentine and he made no mistake to go in for the unconverted try.

Ballentine had another opportunity to extend the Dalriada lead midway through the first half but he was just wide with his penalty attempt. At this stage, the Dalriada team had to make a replacement when they lost lock David Campbell, to a back injury. He was replaced by young Year 12 player, Stuart Mulholland, for his Schools' Cup debut.

The Belfast side had an opportunity to reduce the arrears just before halftime when the Dalriada scrum half was penalised for deliberately throwing the ball into touch. However, the kick was missed and the score remained at 5-0 in favour of Dalriada at the break.

Campbell started the second period strongly but could not get behind a well organised and resolute Dalriada defence. The Ballymoney boys weathered the storm and eventually countered.

In their first visit of the half to the opponents' '22' Dalriada team was awarded a penalty, and Ballentine stroked it over for an 8-0 lead.

Campbell returned to the Dalriada '22' and pushed and pushed for the line but were met by a strong Ballymoney defence. Countless times they drove for the line, but time after time, they were knocked back. The Campbell pack appeared to cross the line on a number of occasions, but were held up each time.

From the resultant scrums the Campbell No 8 threatened the Dalriada line but his attempts were thwarted initially by the hard working Peter Eakin. However, the pressure eventually paid off when they won quick ball which was moved to their left winger who went over for an unconverted try, but put them back in the contest at 8-5.

Dalriada then knew they had to keep their cool and restrict Campbell territorially. From the kick off they held them back and pressurised the Campbell team into making some elementary errors.

With five minutes remaining the Campbell backs tried to kick their way down the field from their own 10 metre line.

Dalriada's McCartney charged down a kick and gathered to pass to his centre, Jonny McLaughlin. He drew a defender to make a perfect pass to his looping scrum half Nevin, who outpaced the isolated Campbell winger to rou in for the try.

Ballentine converted the try secure in the knowledge his team had come through this challenging encounter as deserved 15-5 winners. Pics inside