The Carrick 2nd XV lost by 20 points to 5 to Coleraine II at Tom Simms Memorial Park on Saturday 22 September. The home team seemed to interpret their role as “hosts” too literally and, through a mixture of unneccessary penalties, butchered scoring opportunities and poor defending, made a gift of the game to their visitors. Indeed, Carrick had more than enough possession and territory to win the game. They competed well in the loose, in which Ross Marsden was prominent, and were solid in the scrum until the last quarter. The line-out did mis-fire at times but, on attack, Carrick did breach the Coleraine defensive line on a number of occasions, with No 8 Ryan McGonigle carrying strongly and centre Kyle Jordan splitting the defence on a number of occasions. However, most promising attacks ended either with Carrick turning the ball over or, more often, concedeing a penalty on the ground.
Coleraine took the lead after four minute with a penalty but Carrick had the better of possession for most of the first quarter and into the second. However, their efforts were not rewarded until the twenty-fifth minute when out-half Chris Wallace ran an excellent line to touch down after a good “steal” by Marsden at a ruck and an initial line-break by Kyle Jordan. The try was not converted and Carrick let Coleraine back in front when, on the stroke of half-time, they re-acted far too slowly as the visitors took a quick tap from a penalty in front of the posts and their scrum-half dashed over. The conversion gave the visitors a 10 points to 5 half-time lead.
The third quarter belonged to Carrick in terms of territory, possesssion and pressure but, unfortunately, not on the score-board. The high penalty count continued and chance after chance was lost. The only try of the half was scored by Cloeraine twenty-three minutes in when their hooker broke away from a maul and poor Carrick defending let him in. The try was converted and Coleraine sealed their victory with a penalty after thirty-three minutes of the second half. They survived a late period of Carrick pressure to win by 20 points to 5.
There is talent in this young Carrick 2nds side but they are going to have to learn to reduce their error rate considerably!
The Carrick team was:
C. Jordan; P. Gillanders, A. Moore, K. Jordan, J. Simmonds; C. Wallace, R. Hamilton; R. Williams, A. Charters, E. McBrien, C. Taylor, C. Rogers, M. Ferris, R. Marsden, R. McGonigle(Capt).
The Carrick 3rd XV came back from 8-0 down early on to beat Dungannon IV by 33 points to 15,again at Tom Simms Memorial Park, while the youth teams had a clean sweep against Malone, the Under 17s winning 38-5, the Under 15s 38-5 and the Under 13s 24-0.
Fixtures for Saturday 29 September are:
1st XV vs Omagh, away
2nd XV-no match
3rd XV vs Limivady II, away
4th XV vs CIYMS IV, home
