Carrick Youth survive tough cup encounters.
NK Ltd sponsored Carrick Youth sides all faced tricky home 1st round cup fixtures against much improved youth sides from City of Derry RFC.
At U13s level the squad had a very quick recovery time having played at half time the previous night at Ravenhill in the Ulster vs Treviso fixture.
City of Derry kicked off to Carrick and immediately applied pressure, taking the game to Carrick inside the first ten minutes. However, it was Carrick who drew first blood. From a great clearance kick and chase from out-half Ciaran Wilson, Carrick re-gathered the ball, played their phases and found Thomas “the scoring machine” Alexander on the wing, who rounded his defender to score in the corner. Conversion was unsuccessful. Following the re-start, Carrick played the game in the right parts of the pitch, and threatened to breach the City of Derry line from forwards Christopher Aicken and Andrew Hussell, who was everywhere! In the centre, Jack Cooper and Tom Mathers broke the gain line on numerous occasions and found themselves inside the oppositions 22m. After several phases, scrum half, Ryan Lyttle, picked up from the base of the ruck, attacked the blinde-side, dummied City of Derry’s no.14 and dived over for a great try. Try was unconverted to leave the score 10-0 at half-time.
The game re-started as the first half finished, Carrick were in control and never were in danger of losing the game. In defence, Carrick forwards were solid and secured ball at their own rucks to provide the platform for the backs, which done the damage, and it proved too much for City of Derry when came two further tries; another from Thomas “the scoring machine” Alexander and Tom Mathers, where he is making a trademark himself by going directly going through his opposite man! However, just when it looked like Carrick having a clean sheet, City of Derry got a try of their own, against the run of play, but all credit, they pushed Carrick all the way to the end.
Full-time Score: Carrick 20 – City of Derry 5
Carrick coaches praised all of the players for their performance! From 1-19, this was most certainly one of the best this season! Although, with still a long way to go in the cup, this young Carrick side will prepare for their next fixture, when they turn their attentions to Ballymoney!
Final Score: Carrick U13s 20 City of Derry 5
At U15s level the home side left it very late in sealing victory in this 1st round cup fixture. For large periods of the game it was the travelling side that dominated the contact area allowing them to have much more possession of the ball. It was Carrick however that scored first with another typical line breaking run by the home sides No.8 Jordan Devenney. Sam Gorman missed the attempted conversion. The away side were not to be intimidated by the Ulster U15s League champions and stormed back to score an unconverted try of their own.
Half Time score 5-5.
City of Derry deservedly took an early second half lead with the home side unable to cope with the physicality of the opposition. Carrick where now in danger of going out of the cup in the first round and it fell to captain Gareth Hartley to keep their hopes alive when ,against the run of play, he scored a vital try for the home side which was converted by Sam Gorman. With only 4 minutes remaining City of Derry were awarded a penalty in front of the posts but instead of kicking the points opted to run the ball which paid dividend when their right winger touched down for a try in the corner. The try went unconverted. More drama was to unfold when following a long clearance downfield the home side forced City of Derry to concede a penalty close to their goal line and in the final phase of play prop Jordan Robinson crashed over to score the winning try.
Final score Carrick U15s 17 City of Derry U15s 15
Reds Prove Tough Nuts to Crack
Carrickfergus U17 29 – 19 City of Derry
Saturday’s cup round 1 fixture against City of Derry proved to be of a quality that would grace any Ravenhill final. The two teams provided the crowd with a dazzling display of rugby at Tom Simms Park which boasted 8 tries and a plethora of high level skill and no mean amount of brutality.
This tie was eagerly awaited since the draw was announced with two sides of such rare quality containing several Ulster representatives in their ranks. Right from the kick off it was a real firecracker- the power and sheer size of Derry versus the polished skill of the men in Red from Carrick.
Carrick’s pace and speed of execution bewildered the Derry men early on and Jake Gardener and Neil Beggs provided the Reds with a steady stream of ball and Jake Porter line broke more times than Paddy Wallace might expect to do before skipper John Stewart, never shy near the line scored his umpteenth try of the season for Wallace to convert.
Derry scarcely had time to draw breath then almost straight from the restart Dylan McDowell raced clear on the left and when hauled down, Conor Cambridge was readily on hand to take McDowell’s superb pop pass and score. Wallace nailed a beautiful conversion and the Derry men just seemed to have no answer.
After a short spell of Derry pressure the men from the North West again came up with no answer to Cambridge’s slight of hand and Wallace pulled two defenders to set McDowell free to dive over in the corner. At this stage the fast pace had simply left Derry in a spin and the situation only worsened when Wallace and his electric talent tore through the green ranks of Derry for a score that had genius written all over it.
Always dangerous to congratulate yourself in this game and in the dying moments of the half while Carrick were busy slapping one another’s backs Derry like a wounded lion ripped into the Carrick men and powered over in the corner to take the half time score to 24-5 in favour of the home team.
If science, speed and strategy were the watchwords for the first half, power, toughness and blood and thunder were in evidence in Part 2 of this battle.
Jake Porter, a massive talisman for Carrick was forced to leave the field with a rib injury to join Matt Fisher who pulled up in the warm-up. This with a new renewed determination from Derry, made sure this wasn’t going to be one of Carrick’s legendary “cake walks”.
Derry are big, very big and they powered through the middle, they powered around the fringes and they won territorial advantage and were beginning to steamroller Carrick. The Reds don’t slip off many tackles but Derry’s power hammered cracks into Carrick’s proud defence and eventually, Derry smashed over and converted. Game on and when Derry stick a long kick into the corner, John Stewart’s throw to the lineout sailed over Matty Best’s outstretched hand straight to a graciously accepting Derry flanker’s hand to dive over with a massive grin on his face.
Suddenly it was all change and comeback of the season was on the cards with the Carrick faithful left with their hair standing on end.
Well it’s all been said before about “when the going gets tough”, well this was tough and Carrick got going, rolled the sleeves up, dominated the scrum and the lineout with Musky Gardener and were hardnosed in the loose and simply did a marvellous job of running down the clock.
Wallace missed a penalty after nearly scoring another try before Stewart put the tie to bed with his second from Conor Cambridge’s quick tap penalty. What a game! What a result! Got to feel sorry for Derry- Far too good a team to go out in round 1.
