Schools Senior: Royal Belfast Academical Institution 0 Methodist College Belfast 24 Friendly

We are currently carrying out a necessary behind-the-scenes upgrade to how images are stored and delivered on The Front Row Union Sports. With over 770,000 images on the site, we are moving our entire image library to a dedicated cloud storage service. This means images will load faster for you, regardless of where you are in the world, and the site will be more reliable overall.

As we are working on three separate versions of images during the offload process, the site cache sometimes struggles to keep up with which version to display and occasionally post grid images or complete galleries may fail to appear. This is a temporary side effect of the migration process — the image exists and is safe, it is simply in the process of being moved to its new home and identified as being there. A refresh of the page will usually bring them back, however, if it does not please contact john@thefrontrowunion.com stating clearly the post address and we will restore it as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and appreciate your patience.

We expect the bulk of the image migration to be completed by the end of June 2026, with a fully upgraded version of the site ready to launch in August 2026. Once that work is done, the site will be noticeably faster, images will load more reliably, and you will not see any further disruption of this kind. Thank you for your continued support of The Front Row Union Sports.

Methodist College travelled to Osborne on a dry and windless Saturday morning to play old rivals Royal Belfast Academical Institution.

Report and images by Bob Given

Both defenses were on top in the opening phases but gradually Methody’s possession began to wear down the Inst defense.

Jake Bowden burrows over for the opening score.

After a series of pick and drives close to the Inst line, burrowed over for an unconverted try after 15 minutes.

Inst tried to respond but were beaten back by a stubborn Methody defense.

Methody consolidated their lead after 30 minutes when bulldozed over and with the last play of the first half when scrum half sniped in. Both tries were converted by Ben McFarland to give Methody a 19-0 half time lead.

The second half was barely 5 minutes old when Methody increased their lead when winger squeezed in at the corner. Methody lead 24-0.

RBAl struggle to shake off the MCB defence.

Inst never gave up and spent 10 minutes camped on the Methody line, each drive being repulsed by dominant tackling.

Methody deserved their 24-0 win but will feel that they left a few scores out there.

Gallery Below

Corrections

Drop us a note below if there are any corrections required in this article.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨