Larne through to Semi Finals of Gordon West Cup

Having played each other the previous week the teams had an idea of how their opponents would try to approach the game. As expected, the visitors started the match at a ferocious place, even though the hosts expected this, there was little they could do to thwart the on-coming assault. Penalty after penalty ensued and Larne were on a team warning having only played five minutes of the match. The home side were fortunate not to concede when the referee blew his whistle early, even though PSNI were in for a try.

It did not take long for the visitors to get their justice and well deserved try at that. After good phase play their forwards rumbled over and gave them an early 0-7 advantage.

The Larne men re-grouped under the posts and knew it was time to get into gear before the game would drift beyond them. The pack started to take the upper hand at scrum and lineout to gain some good field position.

The experienced front row of Lough, Hagans and Rea stood firm and gave a great platform for the team to work off. As Larne hammered the PSNI line it was the visitors turn to infringe and with the advantage in their favour Garrett put a cross field kick in to Burns to rise above his opponent and dot down in the corner.

The half time score sat at 5-7.

The second half started in a similar manner to the finish of the first. The hosts had much of the ball and looked threatening. Garrett put in another cross field this time for Montgomery to collect and put Agnew in a hole to pace away from the oncoming defenders.

Finally in the lead they felt the pressure lifting. For some reason the foot came off the gas and allowed the PSNI to slip back into the game as they converted a penalty.

Good carries from Hunter and McCluggage seemed to lift the Larne side once more as well as the good defence of McIlheron brothers and Crampsey. It was not long until space started to open up as the PSNI tired which allowed a few well worked tries to be scored towards the end of the match by Hunter and hard working Cole.

The final score was 23-10 to Larne and they progress to the semi finals.