Waringstown won the Gallagher NCU Challenge Cup for a 28th time with a surprisingly easy nine wickets win over season-long rivals Instonians who reserved their worst performance of the season for the biggest stage.

The build-up had been all about how little there was to choose between the top two teams in the league – Instonians had beaten Waringstown by 10 runs the previous weekend to break the deadlock at the top – but it was one-way traffic at Stormont from the 30th over of the Instonians innings and the loss of Andrew White.

Ten overs later, the Shaw’s Bridge side had been bowled out for 189 and after Sam Topping and Adam Dennison had put on 60 for the first wicket, James McCollum joined Dennison to finish the job with more than seven overs to spare.

Dennison loves Challenge Cup finals. This was his second undefeated knock in his fifth showpiece to leave him with an average of 122. Only White and David Kennedy have scored more in 50-over deciders.

He had the chance of a record third century but, tiring after 42 overs in the middle, he allowed McCollum to finish the match in a hurry, hitting a six and two fours while Dennison scored just three of the last 23 runs. He still finished 90 not out, his first half-century since the beginning of June and at the post-match presentation, said that “certain media reports” on his lack of recent form had given him the motivation to go big in the final. But then doesn’t he always. His previous two cup final scores were 109 and 145 not out.

As Thompson told me after the match: “There is such a thing as a big game player and Adam has proved himself.  But we have others in Morgan Topping (who scored 150 in the final two years ago) who batted brilliantly last weekend (against Instonians) and doesn’t even get in, but we have talked about our strength in depth and relied on it too much rather than what we did today and said batters would bat and they certainly did that.”

Instonians showed much more intent than they did at The Lawn last week despite Nikolai Smith shuffling his batting order with the captain coming in after the regular openers had put on 38 in eight overs and demoting Neil Rock to No 5.

Rock, though, was actually in two balls after Smith because Shane Dadswell was caught at slip from a superb rearing delivery by Daniel van der Merwe – arguable the most important ball of the day - to leave Instonians 64 for three after 15 overs.

Rock scored 26 from 17 balls to help Rob McKinley bring up the team 100 but Ross Allen deceived him the Ireland international in the flight and White was walking to the middle in the 20th over.

Both batters knew they couldn’t afford to lose another quick wicket so they were quite happy to add 37 in the next 10 overs without being parted, but that was to be as good as it got for Instonians as Waringstown turned the screw.

It inadvertently started with a drive from McKinley felling his partner – the ball hitting White flush on the wrist and then deflecting onto his shoulder. The shock kept him prostrate for almost 30 seconds and was it just coincidence that he was dismissed to the next ball he faced, his favourite reverse sweep ending up in the hands of short thirdman.

McKinley then hit the first six of the day – the only one until McCollum’s late treble – but it proved a false dawn as Instonians lost their last five wickets for 24 runs, leaving 10 overs batting unused. The opener lasted until the 38th over when he was seventh out to a splendid tumbling catch by Sam Topping off James Mitchell who also got the other late wicket of note.

James Shannon was the surprise call-up to the Instonians side, for his fifth Cup final, and he came to the middle at the fall of the sixth wicket and faced nine balls in his first, and probably only senior appearance of the season. He would obviously have liked to contribute more but it was great to see the 35-year-old international back on his rightful stage.

He was even given an over with the ball as Smith tried every permutation to try and get a second wicket but he was no more successful than five of his team-mates as Dennison and McCollum helped themselves to 10 boundaries apiece.

Cian Robertson was Instonians’ only wicket-taker, two balls after the longest of the interruptions in play as the umpires repeatedly intervened to try and curtail the increasing ‘chatter’ between the players, which was getting way beyond sledging.

On the resumption, it was Sam Topping who lost concentration and holed out tamely to mid-on. His frustration was evident but the only words that mattered came two hours later at the post match presentation – “Waringstown are the 2025 Challenge Cup winners”.