The Belfast school had enjoyed some impressive wins en route to the final, but it was Ballymena Academy who made the stronger start on the day in Belfast.
They kept things tight and made good use of their strong pack, with several forwards combining to make the hard yards for their school.
Ballymena were rewarded less than 5 minutes into the game when lock Joshua Paterson drove over after sustained pressure inside the RBAI 22, with winger Ben Collins slotting his kick to give them an early 7-0 lead.
RBAI were forced to continue their efforts in defence to repel Ballymena, and got down well to hold up a driving maul which looked certain to end with a try.
Ballymena weren’t deterred, and continued to make surges, with openside flanker Harry Lamont continually driving forward with a series of strong carries, including one impressive line break.
RBAI appeared to have weathered the storm, and soon made their first real venture into the opponent 22. Scrum-half Sebastian Clark then went close with a snipe for the line, but couldn’t get the ball down.
The momentum fully shifted when Ballymena hooker Ben Millar was shown a yellow card for an infringement at the maul, and RBAI made their advantage count.
The resulting penalty allowed the forwards to set up a textbook driving maul, and captain Ross Dillon was on hand to touch down and get his school back into the final.
RBAI suddenly looked a side full of confidence, and after regaining possession from the restart, they again advanced into the Ballymena 22.
This time they made use of their numbers and moved the ball out wide through the backs before it found its way into the hands of Dillon, and the hooker showed good pace to drive into the corner and score to make it 10-7 at half time.
Into the second half, both schools were again evenly matched, and neither was able to make a decisive breakthrough and keep the scoreboard moving.
RBAI had a few glimpses of opportunity when the backs tried to run the ball, but Ballymena defended well to remain just 3 points behind as the second half ticked away.
The Belfast school then had an effort held up over the line, and also saw the ball knocked-on when they had numbers waiting out wide for what would have been a certain score.
Despite plenty of fight from two well-matched schools, no points were scored in the second half, which meant Inst held on to record a 7-10 victory and win the Danske Bank Medallion Shield.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The 22/23 <a href="https://twitter.com/DanskeBank_UK?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DanskeBank_UK</a> Medallion Shield winners, RBAI! 👏👏 <a href="https://t.co/884Q1gXkah">pic.twitter.com/884Q1gXkah</a></p>— Schools' Cup Rugby (@DBSchoolsCup) <a href="https://twitter.com/DBSchoolsCup/status/1633143885055643648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 7, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
### Teams
