Dave ​Whitten’s joy as Instonians on top after ‘right old battle’ in Ballymena derby date

The Belfast side stand as one of four clubs locked on 10 points at the top of Division 2A, while Ballymena are still awaiting their first league points of the campaign.

Despite outscoring Ballymena by eight tries to three, Inst captain Dave Whitten felt it was a typical hard-fought derby, especially as the home side only led 22-17 at the interval.

“Ulster derbies are always hard, and they are always the best games to play in because they are so competitive and you don’t get that many of them in the All Ireland League,” said Whitten. “We knew the challenge that Ballymena were going to come down and give us.

"And, to be fair, in that first half it was a right old battle, we scored then they scored so it was good to come through it with a win.

“At half-time we were just thinking about getting over the line, we just needed to calm ourselves down and maybe they surprised us a wee bit.

“I think in the second half after the chat at half-time you could see we settled a bit more into the game and put the pressure on them more than ourselves by playing in the right areas of the pitch.

“It was pleasing to really keep them out in the second half, for the most part.

"I know they got one try but it was nice that the chats we were having were being put out onto the pitch playing in the right areas and squeezing them in defence and I thought we did very well in the second half.

“Instonians’ nature is we want to play, we want to score tries and we want to run.

"I think Ian (Whitten) is a big advocate of that because he has chased ball all his life, so he wants to run a wee bit with it.

"But some times we just need to weigh up our options and I thought we did that well against Ballymena.”

The four Whitten brothers were reunited on the pitch as Alan came out of retirement.

“It was a bit of a surprise to wake up on Saturday morning to see Alan was playing, Ian and me...though he was on the bench for the fours, not the ones,” said Whitten. “We only got told when we walked into the changing rooms.

“It’s great to have him back...he hasn’t lost anything and he still gets very excited for a scrum.”

Instonians have racked up 100 points in their two games in Division 2A.

“I think you are seeing it is a step-up,” said Whitten. “2A is a hard league you have to be willing to go through phases and earn your scores.

"And I think we are still getting used to that, where in 2B it’s maybe one or two phases and we would have scored.

“I think we’re continuously working on being patient and being able to keep the ball for a long time, then beat them.”

For a second consecutive week, Bevan Prinsloo got a hat-trick of tries for Inst.

Also in the division Banbridge lost at Cashel.

There were defeats for Ballynahinch and City of Armagh in Division 1A while Queen’s suffered a heavy reversal in the tier below.

In Division 2B, there were wins for Dungannon, Malone and Rainey but Clogher Vally lost at home to Wanderers.

Ballyclare are top of Division 2C after a second consecutive bonus point win as Belfast Harlequins drew with Middleton, while Omagh lost at Dolphin.