Schools' Cup warning to RBAI 'reputation doesn't win games'
Wallace last season ended the run of RBAI as Schools’ Cup champions before going on to lift the trophy for the first ever time.
The two sides have been drawn again in the quarter-finals this weekend, but Inst coach Jamie Kirk insists his team will not be fuelled by thoughts of revenge when they take the field in Lisburn.
“When the draw came through, that's the first thing everyone talked about, there's no doubt it gives people from the outside a nice thing to talk about and to focus on,” said Kirk. “It’s funny that we have youth players in this team who have experienced winning in the Schools’ Cup and then players who experienced losing that last year.
“To me, that's enough, I don't think we need to dress it up beyond that, we need to focus on the next moment and the next battle that we have.
“I think if we're focusing on that, it would be a distraction for us, if we spend our time looking back we're not going to try and drop any thoughts in front of us, I think it matters for us to do the next moment.”
Inst are the second most successful school in the history of the competition with 34 wins – three behind Belfast rivals Methody.
Kirk said: “There's always an expectation over Inst teams, isn't there? It's something that's built on reputation, but reputation doesn't win games and reputation doesn't guarantee performance.
“It's something that we'll get out of our heads in some ways, the message has been the same all season...stay grounded, prepare properly and respect the opposition.
"If we do that, we'll give ourselves a chance.
“Wallace are going to be well-coached and well-organised, it's our responsibility to focus on ourselves and make sure that we're in the best place to put in a good performance.
“We've just got to be totally focused on our own performance and make sure that nothing's a given, there's an expectation that the others have on us, we don't expect that to happen.”
Kirk believes the preparation Inst put in before Christmas helped in the 45-10 defeat of Coleraine over the last round.
“We talk all season about how our fixture list is really competitive, we play a lot of the big schools,” he said. “Some of those fixtures this year...really close losses.
“'It’s just convincing the boys that this is all part of the journey and it's really important to prepare them to take learning from those occasions...the fixture list is really beneficial in that sense.”
“When it all comes down to that first round, you've taken all that season-long learning, there's undoubtedly nerves in the team.
“We were doing a review (after playing Coleraine), I was saying to the boys how'd you feel when you were 12-10 up about 20 minutes to go under your own posts? They'd just scored from an error.
“I said, there's your reminder of what cup rugby is because you're not going to go through a cup campaign or any cup fixture without feeling like that at some stage, I think it was a nice reminder for the group that things will not always go smoothly and what matters is focusing on the next moment.”