Instonians boss Paul Pritchard says Bradley McNamara has what it takes to suceed at Ulster

The full-back has been drafted into Richie Murphy’s senior squad as short term injury cover after an impressive display for the A team against Connacht, and McNamara celebrated by scoring two of Instonians’ six tries in the 42-18 win over Blackrock at Shaw’s Bridge in Division 1B.

“Bradley is absolutely outstanding and he's been doing this week in and week out for us for a couple of years,” Pritchard said.

“He's a guy that works in an office long hours and he shows how good he is, and I'm really looking forward to him getting his chance there with Ulster and being in that environment, because I know he's got loads of room to improve.

"The guys out at Ulster will do that with him and we're proud of him, and we're delighted that he's been given the opportunity.

“You get asked about players when it comes to Ulster A games and we've always promoted our lads, and we've always wanted them to go on and improve.

“There's a couple of guys that we would love to see try and progress on and that's the reason we do it really. As good as a home record is, if we could make a guy a professional rugby player, that's pretty big isn't it?

"So we would love for him to go on and do that because it's obviously a dream of his and that's very important.”

Instonians preserved their fiercely proud All Ireland League record to keep the pressure on leaders Old Wesley.

Pritchard’s team have played 31 games since returning to the senior division and have won all of them, collecting 29 try bonus points in the process.

Inst scored three tries in each half and go into the last game before Christmas a point behind the leaders.

Pritchard added: “I said to the lads before the game, everyone's two inches taller when we're at Shaw's Bridge, and you can really feel that out in the pitch – we just think there's a real pride here.

“I don't think the record is ever mentioned but it's obvious that there's a lot of pride in it, and I think that's three and a half years now of All Ireland Rugby and we've won every game at home, so it's outstanding and hopefully it can continue.”

Pritchard was understandably happy with the performance.

“The big focus was our performance,” he said. “We thought we had done an awfully good job the previous two weeks and we're very proud of our form at home.

“It was just important that we brought that out and I think the lads showed a really good response, and we're very happy with how the day went.

“I think the conditions were difficult enough, the ball was quite slippery, so it's good that we had the confidence and I think that's probably the balance you've got to strike; you can be unhappy at a performance but you've got to look at the mental side of it rather than questioning our ability.

“It's obvious that there's guys with lots of talent and we've played some great rugby this year so it's just trying to be as confident as we can, and go out and improve every week. We certainly improved this week than what we did last week.”

Oli Clark also got a brace with Neil Saulters and Mark Lee touching down.

City of Armagh are up to third after a 34-24 bonus point win at UCC, while a depleted Queen’s lost 63-5 at the leaders.

In the top-flight Ballynahinch went down 14-0 at home to St Mary’s.

In Division 2A the Ulster derby at Eaton Park between Ballymena and Banbridge was abandoned due to an injury.

Dungannon beat Old Crescent 20-18 and in 2B there were wins for Malone and Clogher Valley, while Rainey suffered a defeat.

In 2C both Ballyclare and Belfast Harlequins both secured wins.