Ards 3rds travelled the short distance to Regent House to fulfil their fixture with Ophir on Saturday and delivered an excellent performance.

The 3rds took the pitch with the youth of Kris Burgess, James Patton, Oliver Dempsey & Ben Ballantine blending seemlessly with the experience of Gary Presho, Davy Reid, Gary Dempsey, Michael Taylor, Chris McClure and captain David Chivers. The 3rds set the tone early with the combative Paul Hamilton crashing over from short range.

With the Ards forwards exerting dominance Rayan Copeland ran a great line to burst through the Ophir defence to score Ards second try. Ards then started to play with better width resulting in Adam Hughes being released down the right to scorch in for the third. Ollie McCormac's tireless support work was rewarded shortly after with a break and score from 15m out.

With Ards firmly on top and everyone hungry for the ball excellent interplay between forwards and backs resulted in captain Chivers diving over to make it 35-0 at half time - with all tries being converted by the excellent kicking of Chris McClure.

Ards again started the second half brightly, big carries from Peter Scott and Paul Hamilton enabled scrum half Ethan Barrett to release Adam Cooke for a score to mark his welcome return to action after injury.

The score of the day soon followed as a superb clear out from Peter Scott allowed the ball to be moved wide left by McCormac releasing Ballantine to score a great try in the corner. Hughes completed his brace shortly after to put Ards 59-7 up.

To their credit Ophir continued to play to the end and scored a couple of consolation tries making the final score 59-17. Man of the match went to Jimmy Gray for an excellent effort in both attack and defence.