Familiar faces connected to Schools’ Cup semi-final clash with RBAI and Methody

The two Belfast schools are the most successful in the competition’s history with 68 outright wins between them.

The current Inst squad may be inexperienced but have a few familiar names in it.

Former Ulster captain and European Cup winner Andy Ward’s son Bryn was a try scorer in the quarter-final win at Sullivan.

Former Ulster prop and current Instonians coach Clem Boyd’s son Jacob is following in his father’s footsteps in the front row while Dan Soper, who led Inst to three consecutive Schools’ Cup wins with the likes of Michael Lowry and James Hume in the team and is now Ulster backs coach, has son Callum in the squad at scrum half.

“I never actually played with ‘Wardy’ (Andy), he actually coached me for a bit of a season with Niall Malone, so I know him for back then,” said RBAI Director of Rugby Jamie Kirk. “Jacob is an excellent player, he’s a prop and is very dynamic and very explosive with the ball, he’s a chip off the old block but he has an edge to him in the loose which is good, and he is definitely an exciting player.

“Callum is the youngest in the squad and covers scrum half, he has just come into the squad and is enjoying the experience of it.

“We’d be heavy on lower sixth and there aren’t that many upper sixth, more than half the team would be younger, a lot of the lower sixth boys played in the Medallion final so they have experience in bigger games and they are hungry to get back to the Kingspan.

“We’re young but certainly looking forward to the challenge.”

Kirk was into the RBAI job just before Covid put a halt to sport.

“Last year was a pretty frustrating start personally, in some ways it gave me the opportunity to learn more about the school, the culture of the school and what it is about,” he said. “I’m thankful for it now because it puts a bit more perspective on what it means to the boys this year, I’m just delighted to the see the competition back and the boys are loving it.

“Looking back to the start of the season, because there was very little rugby and because we are a relatively young squad as well, it took us a bit of time to build some confidence in our attack.

“Some of the matches we played down in Dublin against teams that have good defence on 4G pitches actually really helped us in terms of getting more confident in that attack.

“Since Christmas we are a bit more clearer in what we want to do with the ball and it has been good.”

Inst beat Sullivan 38-13 in the quarter-final but Kirk thought it was a harder battle than the scoreline suggests.

“There were first on the scoreboard with a penalty, it took us a while to settle into the game but during the second half we were more comfortable as the game went on,” he said. “We scored three tries in each half and kept the scoreboard ticking over which was good, but the match was fairly competitive.”

Methody won a friendly when the sides met earlier in the season, but Kirk feels Inst have improved since October.

“I’m sure both sides will be equally excited about it, with the rivalry we are expecting the physicality to be ramped up,” he said. “Methody won quite convincingly back in October and they have had a fairly strong season in terms of their results.

“We felt it is ages since October and we feel like almost a different team in terms of our learning and development over the last few months and we are looking forward to the challenge.

“Methody are pretty strong this year so we will have to be at our best.”

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