In an early afternoon kick off on Friday, Sullivan Upper School faced Methodist College in Holywood.

This turned out not to be a game for the purists, instead two evenly matched forward packs slugged it out in a war of attrition in the trenches.

Defences were on top in the opening minutes. Playing against the wind, Methody found field position, courtesy of a lineout, after a kick to touch, from a penalty. From the subsequent maul the ball was fed to Peter Lindsay, who cut a line through the defence to round under the posts. Louis Curran’s conversion had Methody 7-0 up on 14 minutes.

Forwards dominated the exchanges in a game played between the 22s.

Eventually Sullivan camped in the Methody 22. Pressure from a maul, close to the line created space for James Nelson to score wide on the left to reduce the deficit to 5-7 after 28 . . .