Sullivan Upper coach Adam Craig hails 'fantastic' occasion at Kingspan Stadium after Schools Cup victory over Banbridge Academy

The game was played as a curtain-raiser before Ulster hosted Zebre in the United Rugby Championship and was the first time that the venue had staged a Schools Cup game other than a semi-final or final.

Craig said: “It was fantastic and really thankful for Ulster rugby putting on a show and allowing us to be one of the first teams to do it on a Sunday in the fourth round.

“I don’t know if it was a historic match or one for the ages, but the boys dug in and the weather didn’t help us play the style of rugby that we wanted to do but they gritted through it in the end.

“We were here last year and we’re hoping to be here again, and we just wanted to make sure we were well prepared.”

Craig was happy with how Sullivan coped with the conditions.

“When you get to cup rugby, it really is all about the result,” he said.

"You want the performance to be great but the weather stopped that for both sides; both like to play running rugby – unfortunately we didn’t see that – but results are all that matter at this stage.

“We probably would have liked our defence to have been a bit better. We didn’t get in front of as many tackles as we wanted to and stop their power and physicality, which was something that we wanted to do. We’ll look at that and certainly try and get better for BRA in the next round.”

Sullivan went out in the last four 12 months ago and Craig is hoping to go all the way this year.

“We have about seven back from last year and there is a decent amount to build around,” he added.

"We have had a big run of injuries this year and we probably haven’t been able to put what we would call our first team out on the pitch yet, so hopefully if we can get everybody back for BRA we can do a job.”

Sullivan will have home advantage in their quarter-final against BRA, who were impressive 43-26 winners away to Methody in the previous round.