Date: 8 Oct 2011

Under 17 v Malone 7-7 (H)
Under 15 v Malone 69-0 (H)
Under 13 v Malone 32-0 (H)

Carrick RFC Youth sponsored by NK Ltd, hosted Malone Youth on the opening week of this season’s league campaign.

Under 13s
At U13s level Carrick continued their promising start to the season with hard fought victory against their East Belfast opponents. Although the score line would suggest this was a comfortable victory for the home side, in reality it was far from it with Carrick having to battle hard for each of their 6 touch downs.

The platform for victory was laid by a solid performance from the home pack of forwards. Led by captain Gareth Hartley and the ever improving Kyle Bell, Carrick’s pack dominated at ruck time and carried particularly well in the loose. Club legend Ralph Snowling had been drafted in mid week for a specialized scrummaging clinic and the fruits of his work where very evident with the home side causing Malone a lot of difficulty at the set piece.

Young Adam White continues to impress at scrumhalf and made several sniping runs into opposition territory. Jacob Bouma in the mid-field also had a strong game both in attack and defense. Indeed the whole backline looked much more potent this week with fullback Nathan Forsythe scoring the try of the day with a 60 metre kick return run from his own 22.

At the final whistle the Carrick had scored 32 points and more pleasingly had conceded no points. Next week Carrick face a much more daunting challenge when they travel to U13s cup holder Lurgan.

Under 15s
Carrick under 15’s beat Malone by 69 points to nil at Woodlawn on Saturday morning. You would think that would please the coaching staff. However Michael Dickson took time to point out that individual brilliance didn’t hide a less than perfect TEAM performance.

Individual brilliance there was aplenty- right from the start Carrick took control. John Turner used his strength to some real purpose to cross the Malone line. John Stewart, Carrick’s influential hooker was next on the score sheet quickly followed by pack leader Jake Gardner. Wallace converted this try and after having poor kicking performance lately it was good to see this fine conversion. Captain Porter scored next off a slick midfield planned move for Wallace to convert. John Stewart squeezed another try in which again Wallace converted on the stroke of half- time. 31-0.

Jake Porter took the tally to 36. Then a blast of what can only be called genius from Sam Wallace saw him go clear with several Malone defenders trailing in his wake; again he converted his own try. By this stage Malone were pretty demoralized and another dazzling individual try by scrum- half Conor Cambridge saw the Cregagh Red Sox heads go down. Porter and Wallace completed devastating hat tricks and John Turner posted a second with Wallace adding three more conversions.

Highly pleasing to the eye individually but the Carrick Reds will face stiffer opposition in this league campaign and they will require the contact zone game to improve.

Under 17s
An under strength Carrick under 17’s side ran out against the league favourites at the Tom Simms Memorial Park on Saturday. The young Carrick side captained by No 8 John Magill knew they would be facing a very strong Malone team who have dominated the league for the past 4 years and who had beaten Carrick in a pre season friendly. This was now the first league match of the season with both sides hoping to get off to a flying start. This is exactly what happened for Malone who in the first 5 minutes scored a great try after a free flowing move in the backs left the Carrick side and there supporters stunned. This was converted giving Malone the perfect start and fuelling their confidence.

The pressure from the Malone side continued for the next twenty minutes with only some last ditched tackles preventing them from stretching their lead. Daniel Crawford out on the Carrick wing comes in for special mention as a diving tap tackle from him on his opposite number saved what would have been a certain try. The half time whistle came with Malone still only 7 up. The Carrick coaches insisted on a greater effort from their back line and rallied the pack to give a more focused aggressive stance up front.

The second half could not have been more different from the first with the Carrick pack destroying Malone up front. Phase after phase from the Carrick pack eventually broke the stubborn Malone defence when Dean Henderson scored for Carrick. This was converted by Carrick’s lock Mathew Wilson. The unrelenting forward effort saw Carrick destroy the Malone scrum and disrupt the Malone line outs. Malone could not get out of their own 22 and started to crack under this physical onslaught.

The referee who had been very much in charge of the game then controversially denied Carrick three tries in fifteen minutes two of which were clearly scores and one which may have been held up over the line. This was very frustrating for the Carrick side who where encamped in the Malone 22 for the remainder of the game. The final whistle came with the teams drawn at 7 a piece, but Malone left Carrick knowing they had received a battering from a rampant Carrick pack and very lucky to have come away with the draw.

Carrick completely controlled the second half purely from the efforts of their pack with the man of the Match Mathew Wilson leading the way.