Despite a disappointing scoreline Service can take a lot of heart from the improvements from their previous outings as organisation and front-up tackling improved dramatically, however Malone's fitness and game organisation finally proved the difference as they ran out clear winners

It was a perfect day for Rugby at The Pavilion, Stormont as both teams stepped on to the pitch, however within 3 minutes Services' David Harris broke 3 bones in his hand in an innocuous challenge and had to be replaced by Niall Donnelly, disrupting all their plans for the lineouts. However they reorganised and Darren Rodgers, returning after a number of years away showed his experience, reducing the lineout to 4 man and not just getting his own ball but also disrupting the oppositions'.

The first half was a tough affair, much of the half spent in Service's 22, but their defence had been much improved and the pack, organised by Paul Culbert were not shirking in the tackle. With Captain and former prop, Bryn Sturgeon moved into centre to pair Ryan Edgar the line held strong and Service were unfortunate to concede the first try as Malone were apparently held up. With the conversion missed the only other points came from the boot of their 10 who also added a penalty to give them an 8-0 lead, unfortunately Service also lost Simon Hoskins to injury when he held up another Malone attack on the line on the stroke of half time.

Service seemed buoyed by their defensive resilience in the first half and with Ciaran O'Reilly and Kanny Dane working well in tandem with fullback Steven Powell they had held out wave after wave of Malone offence, unfortunately with Glenn Kirkpatrick making his debut at prop and utility player, Robert Snodden, pressed into another game at hooker they lost the vast majority of the scrums and this gave the backs very little ball to work with, however Rab Warnock was a solid scrummager on the other side and Phil Patterson at 8 made a number of good line breaks and on a few occasions was able to release scrum half Steven Lawton who was unfortunate to not quite wriggle away for a score. With Conor McCabe playing his first game for the club making some good hits and Jonny Armstrong at out half tackling all round him Malone did well to work the ball round the strong close defence and worked a number of overlaps that they finished well. Matt Thompson came on for the last 15minutes for his debut but the game was well lost by that point. Service's heads dropped after a few individual errors and Malone's fitness told as they were able to run in many unanswered trys late in the second half to round of a comfortable win for them

Service Man of the Match: Darren Rodgers- did well in the lineout and made good tackles around the park