much has to be said about competitive league games being played on home international weekends; in the days of amateurism and non All Ireland League these were the weekends players and clubs played traditional and longstanding friendlies against Southern opposition and many a friendship and tour story was made; alas, this is no longer the case...onto the game.

Having won the previous week Ards 2nds went into this game hoping to keep this momentum going. Malone fielding a much larger and experienced team than Ards including former Ards men Simon Bailie at hooker, Austen Blackburn at prop and Gareth Fry at scrum half ran out winners 42 - 5. This appears to be a rather convincing score but at half time Ards were 20 - 0 down and the 4 tries conceded were directly attributable to mistakes by Ards.

Ards scored the first points of the 2nd half through winger Stephen McKee, after good work by centre John Quigg who tackled and wrapped up his opposite number, then returning no.8 Pete Croan ripped the ball off the opposition and made a driving run in the ooposition half, Croan fixed the final defender and put the supporting McKee into the corner for a well deserved try.

This then gave Ards abit of momentum only to lose 2nd row Gareth McBurney for 10 minutes for foul play; Malone quickly scored a try through prop Blackburn from the resulting penalty, which went unconverted.

Ards then rather needlessly lost full back Stephen Robinson for 10 minutes after being adjudged to have made a late tackle.

Within a few minutes Malone center (and ex Regent player) David Murray was sin binned for 10 minutes because of a high tackle. The game became a somewhat scrappy affair but Malone maintained their composure and played through their phases controlled by Fry and managed to score a further 3 tries, 1 of which was converted.

The young Ards team competed well through out this game and never gave up; the front row of Gareth Paden, Conran Stewart and Ashley Paden managed to take 3 scrums against the head, line outs weren't so good and maintaining possession of the ball through phase has to be worked at during training.

Next week the 1sts and 2nds play Rainey at Ards on St Patrick's Day and 6 Nations Super Saturday.

Ards: Gareth Paden, Conran Stewart, Ashley Paden, Gareth McBurney, Matthew Hunter, Ricky Coates, Chris Dean, Pete Croan, Andy Wright, Chris Webster, Ewan Adair, Oren Kisby, John Quigg, Stephen McKee, Stephen Robinson.

Final score: Ards 5 v Malone 42