Carrick’s Under 14 Boys travelled to Strandhill on Sunday to play Sligo RFC in their Division 1 League campaign in fairly windy and wet conditions.
These local rivals played on three occasions during the under 13 23/24 season, which included the Quarter Final of the Connacht Cup, where Carrick managed to squeeze narrow wins on all three occasions. However, Sligo had a strong campaign so far in their 24/25 season, sitting comfortably in first place of the League Table with 6 wins out of 6 games and meeting Carrick for the first time in the 24/25 season.
Carrick played the first half against the wind, but enjoyed much of the territory and possession – stats with strong ball carrying by their forwards and good defensive work as a team. Whilst Sligo’s backline was strong in defense with a number of try-saving-tackles, it was ultimately Carrick’s forwards who crossed the line twice with both tries being converted to make the score at half time 0-14 to Carrick.
Sligo game out strong in the opening exchanges of the second half with good ball distribution and strong backline running, but brilliant individual tackling prevented Sligo from converting their good efforts into tries. Carrick’s resilience on defense helped them overturn possession and a converted penalty saw Carrick increase their lead to 0-17. From receiving the kick-off Carrick gained good ground with a positional kick and made Sligo play from their own 22. Carrick managed to utilise their forwards well when in possession of the ball and Carrick’s forwards scored another unconverted try to make the score 0-22.
But as you can expect from an accomplished team, Sligo’s pacey and strong individual runners were quick to pounce when Carrick lost concentration and scored their first try of the match with a brilliant individual run from their own half to make the score 5-22. But it was not long before Carrick found themselves in Sligo’s half and it was the backline on this occasion who scored a try in the corner for Carrick from good ball distribution and a brilliant individual effort to further their lead to 5-27 with less than 10 minutes to go.
But Sligo was determined to the end and despite good efforts by Carrick to stop them, it was Sligo’s pacey and strong runners who had the last laugh with a converted try under the post on full time to make the final score 12-27. A game played in good spirit, it was a battle amongst two accomplished teams that had all ingredients of entertaining Rugby.
Carrick will meet travel to Creggs RFC on Sunday, 24th November for their second last match of their Division 1 campaign hoping to get a win to make keep them on track to make it to the Division 1 Final in December.
