In a gripping encounter the UUC came out worthy winners, but only after they had dealt with a severe test from a much improved Carrick team since the last encounter a month ago in the junior cup.
From the kick off the students faced a fierce physical onslaught, which had the referee caution two Carrick players, before he had no choice but to show the Carrick no6 a yellow card for a two footed tackle on the student’s winger, the sort of tackle more often seen in football. This settled things down and both teams endeavoured to play good rugby, with disciplined defence being the winning skill on the day.
Ten minutes in and from a period of pressing defence from the Uni saw back row forward Ollie Millar and prop Marty O’Neill force an excellent turn over, winger Rowden pounced on the loose ball, feeding on to centre Andrew Winder who in turn text book skilled drew the defender and put young centre Jonathan Henry who ran a full 70metres to score the opening try, out-half Whitcroft missed the conversion.
From the restart The University won possession and some good inter passing from Dillon, Eecock and Wilkinson saw the Carrick line threatened again, but with good defence Carrick cleared there line, unfortunately the Student no 7 John Dillon who has been playing excellent intelligent rugby since his return to the club picked up an injury to a chest muscle and was a virtual passenger for the rest of the game, although on more than one occasion put his body on the line, were lesser mortals would have left the field, in many respects this reflected the gutsy performance from the students.
The remainder of the half saw Carrick attack the students and although all was dealt with the Coleraine campus team could not retain possession for any length of time to take the pressure off for any length of time. Carrick’s final throw of the half saw the students opened up by a clever midfield handling move and only a superb piece of defensive work from full back Lee Murphy stopped a certain try, it was excellent work from Lee Murphy to say the least.
The second half again started in lively fashion with University Winger Sam Hall making good ground and scrum half Jamie Ball showing his footballing skills by putting ball cleverly behind the Carrick defence, but again the students could not retain possession long enough to manufacture a score. Developing problems at the back of the uni scrum did not help their cause although the Carrick backrow deserves credit for the pressure applied.
With about 10 minutes left the Carrick team sensed the next score in the game would probably decide the fixture and created wave after wave of pressure, which was manfully repelled by the visitors defence with some big hits coming from 2nd rows Henley and Leonard in particular. Carrick were awarded a penalty for an infringement at the break down, about 35m out, surprisingly Carrick chose to go for the posts rather than the lineout in the corner, perhaps respect for the students defence which was superbly marshalled all day by Wilkinson and Whitcroft. The well struck kick however came back off the upright and was not claimed by the hesitant students however Carrick could not break the tackles of O’Neill and Dunlevey on the line and when they spun the ball wide, and an incredible tackle by the man of the match James Henley who then turned the ball over and fed to winger Sam Hall all in one action, who given space to operate rounded his opposite number to sprint the length of the field to score under the post, Whitcroft duly converted and the students had the cushion that left Carrick with too much to do and they never really threatened the Visitors line again. The difference perhaps between the two teams on the day was that the students took there scoring opportunities while Carrick did not. Final Score Carrick 0- UUC 12.
