Malone and Belfast Harlequins played for the inaugural Patrick Baird Cup as the centrepiece of the Festival of Rugby held at Gibson Park on Saturday.

The game kicked off after a one minute round of applause in memory of “Chippy” and the Malone pack soon took a grip of the game with a try from Tommy O’Hagan off the back of a lineout maul.

The Malone front five had a good day in general and with dominance in the scrum it was no surprise when the second score came 15 minutes later off another maul with hooker Clayton Milligan coming up with the ball. Rory Campbell converted both to give Malone a 14- 0 lead after 25 minutes.

Quins struggled to break the Malone defence and after making little headway, after a series of plays, they opted for a penalty to open their account. However Malone put themselves in a commanding position with Shane Kelly starting and ending an unusual series of plays that saw the scrum half over the line! The conversion was missed giving Malone a 19 – 3 lead at the extended break.

Both teams made substantial changes at the start off the second half. It looked, for a time that the Quins pack might start and get on top but a couple of strong scrums from the Malone replacements regained ascendency in a fairly scrappy match.

A sparkling solo effort from Quins’ captain Mark Glover did offer the possibility of some jeopardy for the closing stages but Malone were able to up the power and close out the game fairly comfortably.

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