​RBAI turn the tables on Wallace to book spot in Schools’ Cup final

​The St Patrick’s Day decider at Kingspan Stadium will be an all-Belfast affair as RBAI face cross-city rivals Campbell College.

Wallace had gained a 14-0 advantage with two converted tries but Inst hit back with 31 unanswered points to reach the final for a 58th time off a 31-14 victory.

“You try not to look too far beyond, you know you are under pressure but you know it is a 70-minute match, you try not to think about it and just focus on what you need to do at that point,” said Kirk. “I thought Wallace in the first half and the first 20 minutes, in particular...their tactics were excellent and they executed very well and so it was a great challenge.

“We were under pressure, and it would be easy to start chasing the game, what Wallace did quite well in the first half was play in the right areas of the park, for our boys it was remaining calm and making sure we didn’t need to chase in the first 15 and make sure we played in the right areas of the park.

“Thankfully, the boys were a little more accurate around that first 15 minutes, which gave us the opportunity to get that first score.”

RBAI trailed 14-5 at half-time but two quick tries at the start of the second half changed the momentum of the game.

“I think maybe physicality showed in the second half as well and it was a little bit smarter rugby from us, which put us into the areas where we could play a bit more rugby,” said Kirk. “The physicality showed and that was probably able to get us over the gain line and then the space was eventually there...so pleased with how we bounced back and the trust we had in our team.”

RBAI last contested the final in 2016 and Kirk knows it will be another tough challenge.

“They had an impressive victory on Tuesday, we’ll go away and start our review and identify areas where we need to get better and then we will look to preview Campbell,” he said. “Certainly Lucas Kenny is a dangerous player at 15 so I think our boys will be pretty excited in the terms of the challenge of playing against him and making sure he doesn’t get the foothold he had in the game against Methody.”