IRVINE will be concentrating on the league for the rest of the season after being dumped out of the BT Cup by National 2 Aberdeenshire.

The home side went into the game bottom of National Three, while the visitors are joint leaders of their own league – and this gulf in class became increasingly apparent as time went on.

Irvine did have some good chances in the early stages, with Craig Williams – in at fly-half for suspended player-coach Blair Skipper – missing an early penalty and a five-metre scrum on the Shire line coming to nothing, but once the tourists opened the scoring there only looked like being one winner.

‘Shire served due warning of what was to come when full back Fraser Little gathered a deep kick and tried to play in lock Ewan Stewart only for the pass to go to ground, but they finally made the breakthrough when hooker Matt Emmison crossed under the posts to give Paul Paxton an easy conversion.

Four minutes later number eight Greig Ryan added a second for the visitors which went unconverted.

Irvine began to see more of the ball after this, but errors continually disrupted their momentum and their frustration eventually boiled over with the sin-binning of captain Ruchin Filander for dissent on the half hour.

‘Shire capitalised on Filander’s absence by adding two further tries through prop Nicky Fraser and centre Jason Laurich, the latter converted by Paxton, to make it 24-0 at half-time.

Irvine needed a strong start to the second half to have any chance of getting back into the game but errors in possession twice in quick succession gifted tries to the visitors, with Stewart getting on the board at last before winger James Paterson intercepted and raced clear.

This ended the match as any semblance of a contest, and not even the sin-binning of Paxton for a cynical tackle could stall the visitors’ momentum as they racked up further tries through Matt McCall, K K Ndewere and Little, as well as seconds for Ryan and Laurich. Ryan added two conversions in Paxton’s absence and Laurich converted his own score.

Both senior sides are due to welcome their Dumfries counterparts to Marress when they resume their league campaigns this Saturday.

Dumfries 1st XV sit second in BT National 3, three points behind leaders GHK, while the 2nd XV sit third bottom of Reserve West 1, three points ahead of Marress.

IRVINE: C Hobson; N Murray, M McGonigal, N McMillan, R Gilmour; C Williams, R McVey; E Callaghan, D Kirkwood, S Docherty, A Nugent, T McHarg, B Hillis, J Carson, R Filander. Subs: C Stevenson, B Nesvat, B Millar, F Corrance, S Rowley.

ABERDEENSHIRE: F Little; J Paterson, P Paxton, J Laurich, K K Ndewere; I Redmond, M McKenzie; N Fraser, M Emmison, S Cook, E Stewart, C MacFarlane, M McCall, B Fraser, G Ryan. Subs: A Cook, O Jackson, W Alton, C Stewart, T Watson.