Malone kicked off their Premiership campaign with a convincing 41 – 21 win against City of Armagh at Gibson Park on Saturday afternoon.

We caught up with the game at half time with Malone defending a 20 point lead thanks to a Callum Smith try and two penalties, a try and two conversions from Rory Campbell.

Malone started the second half on the front foot with the pack keen to take on the Armagh defence. The back line looked slick and, with Josh Pentland to play off in the centre, it wasn’t long before they sent John Creighton over for their third try. Campbell converted to push the score to 27 – 0.

It was complete dominance from the home side in the third quarter and it wasn’t long before “The Big Cheese” Aidan McSwiggan powered over for the bonus point try. Campbell converted to move the score to 34 – 0.

Malone had a couple more chances with Rory Gaffney and McSwiggan both coming close out wide but it was industrious scrum half Shane Kelly that found the line after a trademark dummy wrongfooted the Armagh defence. Campbell converted to move his personal haul to 21 points and the match score to 41 – 0 and there looked no way back for Armagh.

However, a three try burst, in five minutes, from the visitors put a different complexion on the game. David Agnew broke from deep for the first to be quickly followed by Jack Treanor for the second and Kyle Faloon for the third. Faloon converted all three to take the score to 41 – 21, with 10 minutes to go, and there was a hint of panic in the Malone ranks.

Fortunately, for the home team, they were able to re-impose their forward dominance and the game petered out without further score.

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