Carrick bounce back with thumping victory

Carrick had a fairly quiet first half and UUC had a lot of ball in opposition teritory but the home side’s defence was resolute.

They dominated during the second half and ran in seven unanswered tries to add to Andy Kincaid’s first-half effort.

Even when down to 14 men half way through the second half because of a yellow card, it didn’t make any difference; the home side simply continued their blitz and added two tries during the sin-binning.

The Carrick scrum was completely dominant and there were very good performances throughout the team.

Following his try in the first half, Kincaid had a hand in several others, including an excellent pass from the base of a ruck which set up Michael Gilmore.

Aaron McKinney had a good game as stand-in scrum-half - some of his box-kicking was little short of brilliant and he punished virtually every loose kick out of defence by UUC.

An early Johnny Sheriff penalty got the ball rolling before he converted Kincaid’s score after good work from Peter Simpson.

It was all guns blazing after the break as the home side racked up three tries in the first 12 minutes. Jason Wady, Matt Hadden and Sheriff all crossed the whitewash for converted scores.

Number eight Ryan McGonigle then breached the defence for an uncoverted before Michael Gilmore ran in Carrick’s sixth of the day. Aaron McKinney kicked the conversion.

Ross Crymble beat several defenders on his way to the line for Carrick’s seventh (unconverted) and captain Jonny Cullen completed the rout following good work from Hadden and Michael Smiley. The try was converted by Sheriff.

Carrick: M. Gilmore; N. Hastings, J. Cullen (c), J. Wady, P. Simpson; J. Sheriff, A. McKinney; A. Gibney, R. Higgins, R. Williams (M. Smiley), A. Kincaid, C. Rodgers, R. Crymble (C. Ferris), M. Hadden, R. McGonigle.