Rainey Old Boys revelled in the late summer sunshine when they took on Belfast Harlequins at Deramore Park in the quarter-final of the Senior Cup.  On a superb playing surface, they ran in seven tries, five of them converted by out-half Andy Magrath, as they coasted to a comfortable 45-13 victory.

 

Head Coach John Andrews continued his rotation policy, handing some of his promising young players a further taste of senior rugby and resting a few of his regulars.  While there were some unforced errors at times, Rainey had too many strings to their bow as Quins were overpowered up front, but they battled well to put together some good moves.

The Old Boys were ahead almost directly from the kick-off.  Pressing the home side back into their 22', they partially blocked a clearance to snap up the loose ball and quickly feed it wide for scrum-half Lorcan Quinn to stroll over near the corner.  Moving the ball around with great confidence, it was only a matter of time before they struck again.  A midfield break by flanker Adam Bratton led to centre Martin Connolly setting off on a jinking diagonal run into the 22', where forward pressure enabled them to find left-wing Caolin Moran with a long scoring pass.  Magrath landed another fine conversion into the breeze from a wide angle.

 

Quinn made a couple of incisive breaks from rucks before Harlequins tested Rainey for the first time.  They got off the mark with a penalty, but, right on half-time,hooker Daniel O'Neill was helped over after another good run by Connolly to leave Rainey 19-3 ahead.

 

A forward pass ended a promising Quins move, but they added a penalty before Rainey drove through from a lineout twenty yards out, O'Neill applying the coup de grace.  Quins scored a very good try when left-wing McKee took a great line at pace to sear through to the posts, but a counter by full-back Harry Evans with support from the pack created the platform for hard-working back-row man Harbinson to grab a try.  Loose-head McSwiggan, who carried well throughout, forced his way over as the pack continued to dominate and they remained on top despite replacement Roberts being shown a yellow card for reacting to a situation in the front row.  Prop Quinn added try number seven and in time added, Bloomfield did well to chase back and save what looked like a certain try.

 

TEAM: H.Evans, A.Donaghy, M.Connolly, D.McMurray, C.Moran, A.Magrath, L.Quinn, A.McSwiggan, D.O'Neill, K.Donaghy, J.McCusker, R.McCusker, A.Harbinson, A.Bratton, M.McCusker.
REPLACEMENTS: J.Bresland, F.Quinn, J.Bloomfield, B.Roberts, E.Shaw.