Larne 2nds run out winners over Lisburn

Lisburn started the game well through some hard running and tested the Larne men’s defence well. It was the home side who turned things around from the first scrum of the game when a strong Larne pack gave a great platform for the backs to work with when Nick Kelso pierced the Lisburn line and offloaded well to Ryan Gabbey who ran down the touchline to score with McBride duly converting the first score.

Lisburn gathered themselves and a scrum within the Larne 22 resulted in good wide ball for the winger to score in the corner. No conversion.

Lisburn went down to 14 men through an injury to the outhalf and Aaron Carter recognising the space on a counter attack, kicked the ball and a favouring bounce popped up for him to score in a great individual try.
With Larne in the lead, they kept the pressure on and it was Michael Stirling’s break made hard yards and Aaron McBride scored under the posts, with conversion, to keep smiles on the Larne faces.

Jordan Burns made his presence felt when he ran 80 metres of the pitch before tackled. In the resulting scrum, he finished off the last 20 metres with good footwork and with McBride’s conversion, the half time score led 24-5.

Lisburn applied early pressure again when their pick and go momentum carried over the line to give them the first score of the half, only for Jordan Burns to run in his second try of the day through another long distance attack.

Repeated infringements from the home side saw Michael Stirling receive a yellow card and from this Lisburn scored through multiple phases and again soon after when they split the Larne defence.
Mark McIlheron rounded the game up for Larne when he quick tapped a penalty to run on and score in the last plays of the game to top his Man of the Match performance. Final Score 38-22.

Larne 2nds: R. Adair, S. Smyth, D. McCann, C. Mckinty, G, Liddle, L. Cameron, M. Stirling, M. McIlheron, B. Garrett, A. McBride, N.Kelso, G. Knox (c), J. Burns, R. Gabbey, A. Carter