BILLY ALLEN MEMORIAL SHIELD
HOLDERS Newtownards RBL travelled the short distance to Londonderry Park to face Ards Rangers III, with a quarter-final place awaiting the winners.
With RBL not quite firing on all cylinders this season, the home side might have felt they had a chance of causing an upset, but those hopes were soon dashed and the game over as a contest with Legion chalking up five goals in the opening half-hour, two coming from Ben McLean.
Leading by seven at the break, Ethan Ferguson’s second goal of the day made it 8-0 midway through the second half and the next 15 minutes proved to be the David Brady show. Adding his side’s ninth, Brady missed a penalty a few minutes later but made amends by rounding off the scoring in the 82nd minute as RBL set up a meeting with Division 1’s Abbey Villa III in the quarter-finals.
Promotion-chasing Blackstaff were up against one of next season’s potential opponents as they played hosts to Premier Division outfit Millisle. The deadlock was broken six minutes before half-time when William Conville gave Blackstaff the lead, only for Millisle to hit back a few minutes later through Craig Carr.
The second half belonged to the home team, who ran in four more goals to seal their place in the last eight.
Blackstaff’s opponents will be Castle Juniors after they cruised past Division 2 outfit Queens Grads III. It took the Bangor side just nine minutes to open their account, and while Queens managed to get to half-time trailing by just two, Castle turned on the style in the second period, with substitute James Robinson scoring twice from the bench along with strikes from Mark Conroy, Dylan Hay, Jake McAdam and Adam Purce.
