Wallace High seal place in Schools' Cup final after victory over Belfast Royal Academy

Derek Suffern’s side will meet Royal School Armagh in the St Patrick’s Day decider – a repeat of the 2020 final that was never played due to Covid.

Wallace’s powerful pack paved the way for the victory and Suffern is delighted the Lisburn school has a chance to win the trophy outright for the first time.

“Everybody outside this group would like to see the school do it because they have never done it outright,” he said.

"These guys have got their own goals and their own things to be chasing after and hopefully if they can do that and just stay grounded, they can be good enough to win.

“We know Armagh, we know their coaches and they are really well coached, and you saw them in the semi-final playing some great rugby. They will be another tough test for us but hopefully we will be good enough to get the job done.”

Suffern was relieved to see off BRA in a keenly contested last-four clash.

“It was a very good BRA side that just wouldn’t lie down and kept going to be fair to them, they were very hard to break down and very good in attack.

“We were under a lot of pressure and just super proud of our guys digging in. It wasn’t prefect, but they fought really well for each other and found a way to win the game, and we are delighted to get ourselves through to the final.

“We started very well, we started very direct and quite powerful with our forwards and got a good score, and I would have liked another one before the half but they got a key one that gave them a wee bit of momentum into the second half.

“I thought our defence was very resilient, we kicked very well and managed to scramble and get ball,” added Suffern.

“The power game was good and certainly our defence was excellent on the day.”

Wallace secured two second-half tries at clinical moments when the game was in the balance.

Suffern said: “I think that has been a strength of our games this year and hopefully it continues, they have been clinical when they get a chance and when they get into the 22, they tend to leave there with points.

“They kick ball in behind really well and then it is just hard to get out of that final third, and I thought we showed a lot of resilience and composure not to let that crack us.”

Wallace out-half Quinn Armstrong opened the scoring, powering over following a strong drive from the pack on two minutes. Full-back Josh Geddis added the conversion.

Captain Jon Rodgers blasted over from a tap penalty and a Geddis conversion doubled the lead.

BRA responded with the final play of the first half when No8 Ryan Caldwell went over from a maul. Conor McVicker’s conversion reduced Wallace’s interval lead to 14-7.

BRA out-half Frank Davis raced onto a McVicker grubber kick for an unconverted try after the break.

Wallace got their third try as lock Rhys Ewing went over from close range and Geddis converted.

McVicker’s late penalty brought BRA within a converted try but Wallace sealed the victory with lock Michael McCavery scoring a try from the final play with Geddis adding the extras.

Wallace High: (15-9) J Geddis; D Wilson, L Dillon, H Daniel, J Booth; Q Armstrong, A Stevenson; (1-8) R McDonagh, J Gould, O Fitzsimmons; R Ewing, M McCavery; B Moore, J Rodgers (capt.), S Warwick. Replacements: O Cole, D Macklin-Copeland, J Furphy, C Thompson, C Harper, J Curran, C Dawson-Stirling, E Harris. Belfast Royal Academy: (15-9) A Hewitt; C McWhinney, J Carpenter, M McKittrick, A French; F Davis (capt.), C McVicker;

(1-8) E Agbonkpolor, A Caldwell, H Hughes; L Houston, J Irwin; Z Archer, O Cox, R Caldwell. Replacements: N Rossal, C Maxwell, N Gregg, S Saunders, E Fitzpatrick, E Lemon, R Gourley, L Bell.