Larne Grammar entertained Ballyclare High at their Upper Cairncastle Playing Fields on Saturday morning with the visitors running out 0 – 29 winners in a well contested match. 

Unfortunately, with the kick off earlier than posted I arrived towards the end of the first half with Ballyclare leading 15 – 0 thanks to a brace of unconverted tries from Robert Reid and one from Peter Gillespie. 

However, Larne were on the attack in the closing stages of the first half but the Ballyclare defence managed to repulse their efforts the teams turning round without further score. 

In an entertaining second half Ballyclare added two converted tries to their total. Lucca Hamil crossed out wide, for the first, with Mark Jackson knocking over the difficult conversion and Matthew Spence claimed the second, after an earlier effort had been disallowed for a knock on. Kicking ahead from a dropped ball , Spence won the race to touch down under the posts leaving Jackson with a simple conversion. 

Larne, facing a Ballyclare side a notch up from previous seasons, will be pleased that they remained competitive throughout the game, and they certainly had their chances. Unfortunately, for the home team, a few mistakes slipped in as they lost their composure under pressure, but they laid down a good marker to work on for the season and they should go into the opening rounds of the “new look” schools cup with some confidence. 

Despite our late arrival we still managed 150 odd images from a well contested game. 

Gallery below.