Larne taste defeat in pre warm up to final

With Larne due to meet Malone in the Butler Shield final next month, this game could have been a sneak preview. Larne will be looking for a better performance and a drastically different result however.

Malone came sprinting out of the starting gates to harass the Larne lads. Running phase after phase, the faster reactions of the home opened up gaps in the Larne defence. While the visitors plugged those gaps it was only a matter of time before Malone found their way through and with barely 5 minutes on the clock they opened the scoring.

Larne tried to reply in kind and at times looked as though they would as Rennix and Abernethy made good yards and Agnew kicked for position deep in the opposition half.

With McDowell causing all kinds of chaos for Malone in the line out Larne pushed hard for the line.

Fate however is a fickle mistress and the final pass just wouldn’t go to hand for the visitors and Malone were always there to rally and recover the ball. An overload of white shirts on the left wing allowed Malone to score their second.

The early loss of Hall to injury brought Rennix back into the centre, as replacement Marshall took up residence at full back. Larne fought on using Knox and Rea as battering rams to roll slowly up the pitch but again hands let the side down and nothing ever came of the effort the lads put in.

Malone, capitalising on each mistake added 3 more tries before the end of the half to enter the break leading 33-0.

A quick team talk laid out the plan for improvement in the second half.

Two substitutions brought Meikle on for Lough and Jameson for Knox.

Larne started more brightly than in the first half. Alcorn and Meikle making runs into opposition territory supported by Garrett and Agnew to spin the ball out to the backs but while the red shirts managed to slip past many first tackles, a well drilling machine always seemed to bring the attackers down with the second tackle.

Malone playing as they did in the first half looked for the gaps in the defence to exploit but failed to find as many. Some lacklustre tackling however allowed the home side to slip another 2 tries through the back line despite the efforts of Marshall and Mooney. Malone added the final try just before the final whistle when the number 8 crashed through several defenders on the 22, rounding off a 52-0 score line.

An unfortunate score for Larne against the league leaders that maybe doesn’t accurately reflect the effort made by the side.

They faced a well-oiled, well drilled Malone side and on the day the final ball just wouldn’t fall nicely for them.

With 4 weeks until these sides meet again there is plenty of time to reflect on the mistakes and learn from them; and time to improve the positives that could be taken from the game as well.

Line-up: D. Lough, J. Johnston, A. Ferguson, W. Rea, G. Knox, S. McDowell, M. Alcorn, J. McNee, B. Garrett, M. Agnew, J. Abernethy, J. Hall, A. Murray, D. Mooney, G. Rennix, S. Marshall, G. Jameson, B. Meikle