With much of the Club hierarchy away in Dublin celebrating the Senior Vice President’s (Craig Addley’s) 50th birthday, the Maxol-Sponsored Carrick 1st XV continued their fine start to the season with a 32 points to 10 away win against Academy on Saturday 10th October. This bonus point victory takes them into joint second place in the League but they have played fewer games than the other teams involved and are now the only unbeaten team in the Section 2 of the Kukri Qualifying League.
The performance against Academy was again somewhat mixed, with an error strewn first quarter and they were perhaps fortunate that their opponents were even more prone to make mistakes during this period. The scrum was under pressure for much of the game and the line-out mis-fired from time to time but Carrick clearly won the break-down battle, with Ross Marsden once again leading from the front. Further, the scrum problem was not as threatening as it might have been thanks to another great performance from No 8 Ryan McGonigle whose ability to pick up and make ground off a scrum going backwards was priceless on the day. Reece Hamilton had another fine game in the centre, both in attack and defence,while Brian Alexander and Peter Simpson on the wings had good games and were prominent in the kick chase.
The opening quarter was scrappy in the extreme, with both sides guilty of handling errors and some fairly aimless kicking. Academy suffered the misfortune of having to bring both subs on early because of injury and seemed to struggle to find any cohesion despite achieving scrum dominance as the game progressed. Carrick got the first score of the game when a poor clearance kick by Academy- after they had won a turnover on their own line- ended up in the hands of Luke Whitall and the out-half dived over for the touch-down. He missed the conversion from a difficult angle. As the game moved into the second quarter, the visitors began to get the upper hand in terms of possession and territory. They extended their lead after thirty minutes when Keith McNeil got the touch-down following a well worked line-out catch and drive. This time Luke Whittal was successful with his conversion kick from wide out. The home side came back into the match in the final few minutes of the half and, after missing with one attempt at goal, reduced the deficit when they converted a penalty on the stroke of half-time.
Carrick pretty much dominated the third quarter and extended their lead ten minutes into the second half when Luke Whitall put over a penalty from 40 metres out. Just a couple of minutes later, the out-half showed fine anticipation in intercepting a lobbed Academy pass and racing fifty metres to score behind the posts. He added the conversion points to give Carrick a 22 points to 3 lead and then, two minutes later, put over his second penalty, awarded for an offence at the break-down following another great run off the back of the scrum by Ryan McGonigle. Although the visitors dominance of territory and possession continued, it was the home side who scored next when their out-side centre gathered a well weighted kick over the Carrick defence and raced in to score. After this, Academy began to play more of the game in their opponents’ half but could not break down the Carrick defence. As the game moved into injury time, another carry by Ryan McGonigle- this time from a line -out- started a move in which quick transfer gave Aaron McKinney space on the outside and the full-back cut inside the one remaining Academy defender to score and earn Carrick their bonus point. Luke Whittal added the conversion to give Carrick a 32 points to 10 victory.
This was another mixed performance by Carrick and there is still plenty for the coaches to work on but they are beginning to show that they have the ability to put things right on the field and, above all, to do enough to win. They have next week off and then return to action on 24 October against Ballymoney at Tom Simms Memorial Park. They will no doubt take note that Ballymoney and their opponents in the following game- Donaghadee- were beaten in successive weeks by Academy!
The Carrick team against Academy was:_
A. McKinney; P. Simpson, R. Bailey, R. Hamilton, B. Alexander; L. Whitall,K. Topping; A. Gibney, G. McKeown, R. Williams (E. Peacock), K. McNeil, C. Rodgers(C. Rea), A. McKeen, R. Marsden (Capt), R. McGonigle.
