Mixed emotions for Instonians skipper David Whitten ahead of Belfast derby against former club Queen's

Whitten spent seven years at the Dub, captaining the students to a Senior Cup final victory in 2022 and promotion the following season, but left to join the club his father played for and the opportunity to take the field with his three older brothers.

More success has followed at Instonians with Whitten picking up another Senior Cup medal and promotion, and now the abrasive No8 dons the armband of the Shaw’s Bridge team.

The near neighbours have had contrasting fortunes this season, with Instonians sitting second in the table while Queen’s are one place off the bottom.

“It’ll be strange walking in and going to the small changing rooms, you know, I'm going to look forward to it,” said Whitten.

“DJ (Creighton) is coaching there, I haven't seen him in a long time; great coach, great lad, so, hopefully, I get a bit of a chat with him beforehand and afterwards.

“There's still a few guys there like Charlie Irvine that I know and Joe Hopes, so it'll be good to see those lads again and hopefully, the groundsmen decide to put the touchlines in a couple of metres!

“I absolutely loved my time at Queen's, that's probably why I overstayed my welcome – a three-year degree. I played there seven years, probably isn't the norm and probably isn't meant to be the norm, but I think that just showed how much I enjoyed it and the sort of group of lads that I had there I think made me stay that long.

“You know, my first couple of years with the older boys and then from sort of year three on, it was sort of my group of guys and the craic was mighty.

“To be captain it was nice to have Suff (Derek Suffern, Queen’s coach) trust you with that sort of thing; it was just nice captaining that sort of group of lads that I had there.

“They were a joy to captain, and they fairly got behind you and we played some serious rugby.”

Whitten has a lot of fond memories of his time at Queen’s.

He added: “The Senior Cup win in 2022 – that was the lowest of the low a couple of weeks before that when missing out in that Covid play-off disaster against Buccaneers to then, you know, managing to go and beat Armagh at Ravenhill – that was an absolute winner.

“There was also this game when I was in second year at Queen's; we played Malone away on a Friday night and that was the best Malone team, and we weren’t given a hope. They had Matty Dalton playing for them and we went out at beat them at Gibson Park under the lights.

“The memory that sticks with me is their crowd lined the way out and lined us the way back in, and we had some party after that.”

Another game that sticks out is when Queen’s went to Cork needing to beat Dolphin to gain promotion and racked up 99 points.

“I think that was a lot of hard years paid off,” said Whitten. “And it was a bit of relief for the guys to get up, but I suppose that was nearly the end of that group of mine.”

After spending seven years fighting to get promotion, Whitten left to go to Instonians but it was an easy decision.

“It was probably the best decision I made in a way. My group were starting to break up a bit at Queen’s and then to come home back to Instonians where I did my mini-rugby – I played up to under-15 level – to come back and get to play with all three of my brothers and then to go and win a Senior Cup that year, that's a memory that I won't forget.

“Beating Armagh in the semi-final and the first two boys I hugged was Ian and Alan and that's something that will live long in the memory, so it was a good decision in the end.”

Whitten has donned the skippers’ armband at Instonians and is spearheading the push to get into the AIL’s top flight.

“I don't really know what all the boys think when they put me as captain but I suppose it's nice,” he said.

"Instonians always have the potential to do something like this. The amount of guys that they could bring home, guys that would come back from uni like Hugo (Ellerby) and Bradley (McNamara)...the likes of me coming from other clubs.

“It was just hoping to get back up into the All-Ireland League and when they did it, you can see the sort of progress that we've made and that core group of lads that's been there since the Junior League, you know, it's credit to those guys – it's the dedication that we have here.

“We're a proper club team, we train Tuesday, Thursday, play Saturday, we’re a proper group.

“This year, it's harder in the leagues, it's much more challenging, so we're just going to have to keep going, keep pushing the ones at the top.

"I think 1B is going to be seriously competitive. If we can keep Shaw's Bridge as a bit of a fortress and pick up away wins when we can, you never know what could happen.”