It was always going to be a day of firsts at Eglinton but the most significant was Craig Young’s maiden five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.

The Ireland international showed all his experience and why he loves bowling at Eglinton to play the main role in the demise of Northern Knights in the first domestic first class game in Ireland.

He finished with five for 37 – better than any of his figures in 42 Ireland internationals – as the North West Warriors dismissed their NCU rivals for 130, despite skipper James Shannon’s lone defiance. His 71 was almost 60 per cent of the runs scored from the bat and his 107 balls faced accounted for almost half of the total in the innings.

By the close of the first day, the Warriors were just 41 runs behind with six wickets remaining, captain Andy McBrine leading from the front with 29 not out – the second highest score of the day – and his partnership with Niall McDonnell worth 46 is already the highest of the game.

McDonnell was a last-minute addition to the Warriors squad, called up as cover for Johnny Thompson who, in the end, did not even make it to the ground yesterday morning, ruled out with a side-strain.

The Warriors assistant coach was named in the starting XI – one of 12 players in the game making their first-class debut – at the expense of Steve Lazars and he has already proved his value after the Warriors top order struggled against the new ball, the Instonians trio of Nathan Smith, Shane Getkate and Robert McKinley reducing them to 43 for four.

It was definitely a day and a pitch for new ball bowling and no-one was more delighted than Young that his skipper won the toss.

“It was the first time I think I remember genuinely hoping my captain would win the toss and bowl first and get first use of it,” he said.

“It is a nice wicket to bowl on, hard with plenty of grass and I love bowling here anyway, especially with the Duke’s ball. If you put it in the right spot or thereabouts it will give you enough help.

“But I don’t think it will change too much over the next couple of days and if you get yourself in it is not too difficult to bat on.

“The way Shanno batted was the way you have to bat. He made the bowlers come to him, and he had a really good game plan. You have to get yourself in and not play too many flashy shots, it’s just a matter of digging In.”

It wouldn’t have been Ireland, however, if everyone did not have to wait for the first ball of the new era in Irish cricket.

Overnight rain had left areas around the square too damp to start on time and a couple more light showers in the morning delayed the toss to 1.40pm. By then the photographers and even the television crew – although you wouldn’t have known they were here by the absence of cricket on last night’s BBC Newsline programme – were ready for the historic toss.

Inevitably McBrine was the last into the middle but finally the coin went up, Shannon called wrongly and 20 minutes later, with only a couple of team pictures in between to signify it was a special occasion, Adam Dennison and Chris Dougherty were walking out to face the first over.

Dennison had come into this week’s inter-provincials in wonderful form for Waringstown – lowest score 39 – but for the second successive day playing for the Knights he failed to survive the first over, Young finding the edge and McDonnell’s first touch was to hold on at first slip.

It was to be the story of the afternoon, after James McCollum had the honour of hitting the first first-class boundary. He was Young second’s victim, caught behind for 11 which would prove to be the second highest score of the innings!

In between David Scanlon became the first bowler in the match to take his maiden first class wicket, having Chris Dougherty, the scorer of the first run, caught at mid-wicket and so the procession continued as the ball nipped around and at one stage it reached the stage where the batsmen were afraid to play a shot outside their off stump.

Getkate was caught at third slip, McKinley at fourth and by the time No 11 Gary Kidd had joined Shannon – who hit the only two sixes of the innings to go with eight fours – McBrine had five slips for Stuart Thompson who took the last two wickets, with a return catch from a skyer by Shannon.

Fittingly it brought another first - Thompson's best first-class figures.