After two wins in the previous week, the Carrick 1st XV lost their away fixture with Grosvenor at Belmont by 27 points to 7 on Saturday 26 March. It was another one of those days for the Maxol-sponsored Carrick side when very little went right and everything, including the refereeing decisions, seemed to happen for their opponents. That said, the visitors brought many of their problems on themselves. In contrast to the game against Ballyclare a week earlier, there was a lack of committment at rucks and mauls and they seemed to have no answer to the counter-rucking of the big Grosvenor pack. On top of that , a lack of precision and awareness of options caused too many turn-overs and attacking opportunities to be lost. There is no doubt there was a touch of good fortune about at least two of the home side’s tries, and they came against the run of play at the time, but the simple truth is that Carrick did not do enough to deserve to win this game.
The home side took the lead with a well worked try from a scrum 5 metres out after fifteen minutes and then went further ahead when their left winger ran out of his own 22, chipped ahead and gathered to go over in the corner. A third try followed just before half-time, from turn-over ball inside the Grosvenor half ,and this time the right winger got the touch-down after beating the Carrick defence on the outside. This gave the home side a 19 points to nil half-time lead.
Grosvenor extended their lead with a penalty eight minutes into the second half but Carrick finally got a score five minutes later when, after a sustained period of pressure near the home side’s line , Aaron McKinney forced his way over following a tap penalty. David Kirkpatrick added the points to leave Carrick trailing by 22 points to 7. Then, with just over ten minutes to go, Grosvenor got their bonus point try when their left winger chased a speculative fly-hack into the Carrick 22 to get the touch-down.
All in all, a game to forget for Carrick and they will be hoping for better things when they face Enniskillen at Woodlawn on Saturday 2 April.
The Carrick team against Grosvenor was:
C. Jordan; D. Crothers, J. Wady, D. Kirkpatrick, K. Quinn; A. McKinney, M . Patterson; D. McKeen, R. Higgins, P. Greenaway, S. Currie(Capt), C.Ferris, N. Marsden, C. Patterson, A. McKeen.
There were wins for the Carrick 3rd and 5th XVs on Saturday and the Under 19s put up a very creditable performance before going down against Malone.
The Under 13s beat Newry by 56 points to 7 and the Under 15s beat Dromore by 44 points to 12. This means that both teams progress to the semi-finals of their respective Cups. The Under 17s warmed up for their quarter-final tie with Enniskillen with a good mid-week win over Belfast Harlequins.
