Carrick-on-Shannon’s Under 14’s welcomed Buccaneers in their final Division 1 League before next weekend’s home semi-final. The last time these two teams met, was in April 2024 at the Dexcom Stadium in the U13 Boys Connacht Cup Final which Carrick won comfortably. Seven months on and Buccaneers was a bigger and more physical team that Carrick had to face.
The first exchanges of the first half seemed even handed between the two teams with Carrick being strong in their ball carrying, but Buccaneers quick on the ball and winning a number of turnover penalties to soften Carrick’s attack and momentum. The pressure put on Buccaneers eventually took its toll with Carrick scoring two tries, the second being converted, to take a lead of 12-0 with about 5 minutes of the first half to go. Playing with the wind, Buccaneers found themselves in Carrick’s 22 from a long kick down field that resulted in a scrum being awarded in favour of Buccaneers. Despite relentless defense by Carrick, Buccaneers eventually won the arm wrestle to go over for a try that was converted to make the half time score 12-7.
Carrick was quick to score their first try in the second half from a prolonged period of phases that eventually saw Carrick going over for another converted try to further their lead to 19-7. Whilst Carrick found themselves in their 22 on a few occasions, they managed the advantage of playing with the wind well and enjoyed much of the territorial advantage in the second half. Carrick managed to score another unconverted try and scored a further three points from a penalty kick to lead the game 27-7. Buccaneers kept fighting and their efforts was rewarded with a brilliant opportunistic kick over Carrick’s forwards from a penalty that was well chased and gathered by Buccaneers to score a try in the last play of the game to make the final score 27-12.
Carrick will be playing their Division 1 Semi-Final at home on Saturday, 7th December 2024 in against Galwegians RFC to see if they can be the first Carrick-on-Shannon RFC team to make it into a Division 1 League Final.
