Stevenson Shield incentive as Instonians and Armagh clash at Shaw's Bridge

Inst and Armagh both enjoyed bonus point victories on the opening day; Inst scored six tries at Banbridge while Armagh ran in seven touchdowns at home to Rainey.

Armagh coach Chris Parker is expecting a much tougher test in Belfast.

“Everyone knows about how good Instonians are, it is the challenge we want and it is the challenge we need to get us prepared for All Ireland League rugby,” he said.

“Rainey was a challenge in one way and Inst will challenge us in other ways which is exactly what we need moving forward.

“We’ll still try to rotate but it is such a short lead into the AIL you want to hit the ground running and you want everyone to have as many minutes under their belt as they can.

“It is all a building process and we are still working our way on that path.

“Rainey were always going to test us physically and I thought a lot of positives came out of the performance, a lot of what we have worked on through July and August certainly came to fruition and as a group of management and players we were very happy.”

Armagh want to kick off their 150th anniversary season by winning the Ulster league.

Parker added: “The 150th has been talked about and it will sort of run from January to January. It was launched last week and there is a buzz about it in the group.

“It may be a decider. We know Inst will be a huge challenge to prep us for the AIL. At the minute we are just focused on keeping that building going and taking these challenges on come the weekend.”

Inst coach Paul Prichard was happy with the first hit out at Rifle Park but knows his team will have to step up a level against Armagh.

“For us going into our first game not having any pre-season friendlies we were looking more [at] performance than the result, and I think the performance was probably better than the result showed,” Pritchard said.

“To be honest it showed us a few things that we needed to work on and hopefully we’ll iron them out this week and improve.

“That is all we are trying to do at this stage is identify things that we need to improve and improve them as quick as possible.

“This weekend the weather forecast is meant to be very good I like to think that we play quite an exciting brand of rugby and Armagh certainly do as well,” he added.

“It should be a good game and a real challenge. They are a 1A team and they are two leagues above us, so there really isn’t any pressure on us; we just want to look at performance and we’ll look at the result after it.”

Glen Faloon starts on the wing for Inst having left the Palace Grounds in the summer while the Armagh side includes his two brothers Kyle and Neil.

Banbridge host Rainey in the other game.

In Group A Dungannon will want to build on their impressive win over Ballynahinch last week as they host Queen’s. Hinch welcome Malone.

In Division 2 Ballyclare make their senior bow at home to Ballymena while Belfast Harlequins entertain Omagh.