A fantastic day at Carrick Rugby Club on the official opening of the new clubhouse the youth teams perfomred well in their 3 fixtures against the ever dangerous Ballyclare Youth. Two of the best youth systems in the land here and a delight to watch such good rugby from both clubs. Carrick Youth were victorious on the day and below is a report from the U15 camp + an InTouch TV interview with the U17 XV coaches and InTouch TV highlights from the U17 & U15 games. We managed to get pictures from all three games which you can see in the link below:
Carrick U15s Open At A Canter
A bright sunny morning at The Tom Simms Memorial Ground saw a rampant Carrick U15s overcome local friendly rivals Ballyclare in an early season warm-up match.
Ballyclare were only able to field thirteen players, a problem for them which also proved problematic for Carrickfergus who had a squad of thirty players that their coaches & management wanted to gain pre league game time.
By agreement the match was played in sessions thus giving opportunity to ring the changes & make sure that all players got a meaningful run.
Carrick dominated from early on in the first session & after the usual settling in period began to rack up the scores, Connor Cambridge who sometimes allows others to reflect in the glory of his controlling influence came out with all guns blazing to snatch a brace of tries & set the session alight.
Jake Porter reacted to this in typical fashion with another brace of tries before John Stewart carried in typically strong fashion to get his first try of the season.
CLICK HERE for 179 Pictures From All 3 Games
New to the squad this season & straight on from the start Jordan Devenney showed what a prospect he is with a powerfully evasive run that took him over in the corner.
Sam Wallace tacked on a couple of conversions & the session ended 34-0 for the home side.
The second session saw Carrick ring the changes with the coaches introducing not only a completely new team but a majority of players experiencing rugby at this level.
Ballyclare had their best patch of the morning & with some of the Carrick players trying to adjust to the power & the pace of the game Clare raced in to a well deserved two try lead. More changes were made by Carrick during the game which was now swung Carricks way by a comeback inspiring try from Dylan McDowell. With the home side finishing strongly McDowell crossed again but the final winning score eluded Carrick & Ballyclare rightly claimed the session by 12 -10
Once again Carrick introduced a new line-up for the final session with rolling subs being the order of the day, to score in this session was a bit of a poison chalice with the coaches replacing Carrick scorers from a bench groaning with the weight of numbers.
“Twin” Berry & “Magic” Christian weighed in with two tries apiece early on & the contest was as good as over. Jake Porter added another before the cheer of the day went up for John Turners 30 metre gallop up the left touchline for a fine try. Stewart Rodgers chipped over two conversions & goal kicking prop Sam McMurtry added a further two points. Final score in Carricks favour 36-0
Although never really tested by a gallant Ballyclare team this was a good exercise for the Carrick XV who now have more knowledge about players and their requirements for the coming league & cup campaign.
It was good to be able to blood a huge number of players at this level & add to the coaches ever burgeoning headaches about selection .Equally pleasing was the enthusiasm of all involved and the sight of Evan Sloan & Ian Kerr on the touchline, hopefully they will be shortly restored to full fitness & staking a claim for inclusion in the starting XV.
