Hinch 3rds got off to the best possible start in the Crawford Cup as they outclassed Larne 8 tries to 1 in the first round. Captain Andy Glenn had prepared well securing Lewis Johnson for the front row along with Nicky Jones for the wing; with Robbie Irvine returning from injury to fill the outhalf position.

Irvine got first points on the board with a finely struck penalty from in front of the posts with only five minutes gone, although it wasn’t long before they got over the whitewash through Gareth Murdock. The flanker received the ball on the Larne 10 metre line and beat the fullback to score just right of the posts.

Jordon Graeme was next to score as the young centre cut a line off the winger Jones and he had the pace to make it beneath the posts. He managed to get a second closely after but it was only a case of shrugging his opposite number out of the way as he took cramp. A Perfectly timed offload from Christopher Kirk put Murdock in enough space for him to grab a second try.

Coach Carter had very little to tell the troops at half time except to continue what they had been doing so effectively.  Although the Captain forgot to rub the grease from his hands and allowed the Larne men to get an easy try from the kick off.

After that it was all one way traffic as David Gilkinson, Neil Douglas and Pete Bell all scored tries a piece. The referee blew the game up 15 minutes early  as Graeme completed a hat trick of tries, beating 5 defenders in the process.