Plenty of positives for Queen's coach Derek Suffern after battling All-Ireland League performance

The students also shipped dubious two yellow cards, but still led 20-17 before three late tries gave the Dubliners a 38-20 win.

It was their first ever game in Division 1B and although the result went against his side, coach Derek Suffern felt there were plenty of positives to take from the match.

“The red card obviously has an influence on the game,” he said. “You’re down to 14 men and you are constantly fighting and the two yellows didn’t help us.

“Even with that we got ourselves into an outside chance.

"We stayed pretty close to them and created a lot of opportunities.

“I think for our first game in there we can really take confidence from it – we are well capable.

"I suppose now it’s just about taking some learning from it, moving on and hopefully in the next few weeks we keep 15 on the pitch and hopefully we’ll be in a good place.

“I thought our set-piece was excellent scrum, the lineout and we had a couple of good maul scores so there were some really good performances.

“I thought our kicking game was very good and I thought we really worked hard for each other in defence – you are constantly scrambling when you have 13 and 14.

“I thought the boys showed some really great attitude to stick in it and were probably unfortunate to let those back end scores get away.”

Suffern was happy with Queen’s physicality against the side that finished second last year.

“They were very physical and fast, and they probably produced a wee bit quicker ball than we did, so we have some learnings to take from it, but I think the boys confidence from it,” he added. “There were a lot of young players out there.

“There were some guys playing their first game of All-Ireland League rugby, never mind in Division 1, and some guys playing their first game of adult rugby.

“There are a lot of positives to take from it and we’ll just keep working hard and see where that takes us every week.

“We are very much evolving at the minute from losing a lot of guys last year and the natural transition of Queen’s Rugby and that is what university rugby is about.

“To be fair, they have gelled very well as a group.

"There are some more guys to come into that.

"A lot of those guys out there will play a lot of AIL rugby this year and hopefully as the weeks go on gel together and cut out some of those mistakes that cost us a little bit.

"I don’t think we’ll be far away every Saturday.”

In Division 1A, both Armagh and Ballynahinch picked up losing bonus points on the road as Hinch went down 16-13 at Terenure and Armagh lost 28-21 to Cork Con.

In 2A, Banbridge beat Cashel 26-14, Ballymena suffered a 29-23 home defeat against Navan and Malone went down 26-13 to Greystones at Gibson Park.

Instonians made it 19 bonus point wins from 19 AIL games since returning to the senior ranks as they began life in Division 2B with a 47-19 victory at Skerries.

Belfast Harlequins beat Malahide 30-27, Dungannon won 48-14 against Dolphin but Rainey lost 33-31.

In Division 2C, Clogher Vally won but there were defeats for Bangor and Omagh.