Schools' Cup: Regent House have eyes on 'elusive' last four spot in the competition
Regent House have produced three British and Irish Lions but have only ever won the Schools’ Cup once in their illustrious history.
Blair Mayne, Ards' most famous son, learned his trade at the school and went on to play for Ireland and the Lions.
Nigel Carr and Phil Matthews are both former alumni of the Co Down school, who were part of the Ulster side that beat Australia in 1984, helped Ireland win a triple crown a year later and the two back rowers donned the red shirt of the Lions.
Regent’s only success in the Schools’ Cup came in 1994 with an 8-3 victory over Wallace at Ravenhill.
The school’s last final appearance was in 2008 when they lost to Methody.
With a sprinkling of Ulster and Irish age grade representatives - plus Brian McLoughlin and Neil Doak who both masterminded Ulster’s run to the European Cup final in 2012 on the coaching ticket - expectations are building at Regent but the school have been handed a tricky quarter-final tie away at Campbell College.
Head coach Ben Davison is hoping Regent can advance past the last eight.
“It is our third year in a row hitting the quarter final stage, so it is somewhat our expectation, but it is also a huge goal of ours to progress beyond that but we know that we have been dealt a tough draw,” stated Davison.
“Campbell are a team that we haven’t played a huge amount at senior level but certainly throughout junior level we have played them in various fixtures. We know they have huge strength in depth across the board.
“We know that they have a great kicking game, we know they are a good physical side so we are going to have to come up with some strategies to counteract that and hopefully bring some new things to the table ourselves and catch them cold a bit.
“In general, the school has been going well. We have had decent numbers coming through in all year groups.
“We are on a crest of a wave in terms of our Ulster and Ireland selections, a few of our upper sixth players have been involved in the national programme.
“We are just looking for another opportunity this February to try to get to that elusive last four place which has evaded us for a number of years now.
“Obviously in a really competitive school system with only four teams going through there is a lot of talent out there and every team has the same objective.”
Regent reached the last eight with a tight 14-12 win over Ballyclare High School.
Davison reflected: “Defensively we were really happy with ourselves, our energy was excellent, our double tackles were excellent, we got some good scores through our captain Tom Bell.
“He scored a really nice try early on in the second half where he ran it in from about 50 metres.
“In terms of work ons we need to get to the edge quicker, working on getting wide and actually having faith in our guys that they can make the yards if we can move the ball.
“Conditions will dictate largely how that will be. They haven’t been great the last fortnight and I don’t see them being any better on Saturday but that might go in our favour. Both teams have to deal with the conditions and get used to playing with a slippy ball.
“Hopefully we are going to rise to the occasion. We know Fox’s Field will have a great atmosphere with loads of folk coming down to support both schools.
“We’re looking forward to putting a marker down and giving ourselves as good a chance as possible to go further than we have done in the past few years.
"We’re glad for the opportunity but focused on our game and we know we have the talent there to cause a bit of an upset.”