Eight-try delight for Royal School Armagh to reach Schools' Cup final over Rainey Endowed

The Orchard County school will face Wallace High School or Belfast Royal Academy in the St Patrick’s Day decider following four tries in each half, having used their powerful forwards to good effect to dominant territory and possession.

Armagh got of to the perfect start – scoring the first try of the contest with less that two minutes on the clock.

From a lineout in the Rainey 22, the forwards drove before hooker Charlie Reaney peeled off down the blindside to show his power and pace to go over. Out half Evans Hughes was off target with the conversion.

Rainey captain Owen O’Kane had the opportunity to open his side’s account but was off-target with a long-range penalty.

The Magherafelt school took the lead on 12 minutes as Lorcan McLarnon, on a reverse pass from scrum Ewan McKay, burst into the 22 and showed some neat footwork to evade three defenders and go under the posts. O’Kane converted.

However, the lead was short-lived as O’Kane knocked on from the restart and from the resulting scrum Armagh centre Cameron Cunningham exploited a gap to dart over for an unconverted try.

Armagh opened up the rival defence again as scrum half Will Boyd glided through a gap to touch down with Hughes converting.

The scrum half went over again following a sustained period of pressure on the Rainey line as Hughes’ conversion gave Armagh a 24-7 lead at the break.

O’Kane got Rainey’s second try as he stretched out from close range to ground the ball.

Hughes was next to go over from Armagh after another sustained period of pressure on the Rainey line.

The out half went over for his second try minutes later then centre Ryan Hamilton was put into space and he crossed for Armagh’s seventh try.

Rainey scrum half Eoin McGuckin bagged a late consolation try for the Magherafelt side but Hamilton completed the scoring with his second – and Armagh’s eighth – try.

Armagh now have a chance to win the cup outright for the first time since 2004 when they beat Campbell College, having shared the trophy with Wallace in 2020 when the final was cancelled due to Covid.

ROYAL SCHOOL ARMAGH: (15-9) T Morris; R Hamilton, N Hamilton, C Cummings, Z Majid; E Hughes, W Boyd; (1-8) A Stinson, C Reaney, C Dale; H Dougan, J Reid; B Russell, S Gray, T Dougan (c). Replacements: M George, H Hutchinson, B Todd, I Kingston, F Starrett, R Finlay, A Harrison, P Seweryn. RAINEY ENDOWED: (15-9) B Bell; J Johnston, L McLarnon, E McNulty, C McConville; O O'Kane (c), E McKay; (1-8) R Nugent, E McGuckin, C Graffin; M Chambers, A Goldridge; M Allen, L Caskey, G Stone. Replacements: H Shanker, W Hunter, A Buck, B Kerr, J Clarke, S Steele, C Henderson, H Cappell.​​​​​​​