3rd XV beat Carrick 5th XV

Thursday, 15 September 2011 15:12

Academy 3rd XV v Carrick 5th XV

With conversation of the eagerly awaited Hurricane Katia, Academy 3rd XV gathered on the first Saturday of their season. The squad mainly recruited by recently appointed skipper Andy McCormick had within it 6 debutants.  Blowing a gale, Brett Martin getting their money’s worth from their mill, several of the livelier members of the team graced the pitches before the warm up. In true Roughfort style as they set foot on the pitches the rain started and of course back to the changing rooms they retreated. At ten past two the rain had ceased and both teams made their way to Pitch 5. After a brief warm up, the match was ready to commence.

Off to a good start, Academy’s Marc Thompson opened the scoring account from an inside centre chip, the right winger was showing some excellent football dribbling skills touching down a few minutes in. Converted by Cartmill, a good start for the threes! Tragically, after getting the game underway again, some minutes in showing how much this team meant to him, Pete Trimble put his body on the line and unfortunately came out the wrong side of the shattering collision. A dead leg saw the end of left wingers day and he was replaced by a fresh Grant Calwell.
Good running lines from Robbie Martin and Andrew McCarthy got the home side deep into the Carrick closed teams half. Under undeniable pressure the opposition cracked and Captain Andy confident in his kicker, pointed at the posts. Three more points for Academy.

The defence in the Academy backline was outstanding, with bone-crunching tackles from debutant Andrew ‘Wendy’ McCarthy at ten and from Andy Wray playing open side who has a imperishable work rate. Through this a strong Carrick managed to slip through 2 slimy tries bringing the score to 10-14.
Halftime’s whistle soon to blow, Academy needed someone to step up.  They got more than they required to put them ahead with Andrew Borland breaking, feeding Cartmill for the first try and then Carrick, under immense pressure from lineout veteran Chris Magee, produced scrappy lineout ball which was hoovered  up by Borland who trundled over making the half time score 22-14.
Second half commencing, William ‘Bill-Bob’ Robert replacing Magee, Carrick received the kickoff. The lads playing into a brutal wind were immediately pinned back into their own half. Carrick were dominating. First scrum of the half was uncontested as were the rest of the scrums, the front row from Woodburn Road couldn’t withstand academy’s young, full of life, front row consisting of Adam Martin, Andrew McCormick and Jonny Allen.

Carrick took over the scoreboard for the next twenty minutes or so, scoring two tries and a penalty kick and taking the score to 22-29 with ten minutes to go. Tempers were flaring, amidst the Carrick scoring spree Stuart Carson was sin binned by the touch judge for a dangerous tackle, but Paul Vance, kept his cool and organised the backline. All seemed lost until the Academy’s sweeping no.8 Patrick Barnes  covered a large clearance kick deep into his 22, running the ball out he passed to Marc Thompson who ignited the right wing, taking off he made it into the Carrick half, stepped inside, then through into the Carrick 22, being chased down powered through a tackle and finally scored. Cartmill, obviously so excited, pushed the kick slightly wide and was quick on his bike into his own half for the kick off.

With Carson back on the field, big Ross Cameron in the second row fielded the kick and proceeded up the pitch dismissing Carrick players to the left and right of him. With the score at 28-30 Academy needed some points in the dying minutes of the game. Applying more and more pressure the closed team cracked and conceded a penalty deep in their half. Cartmill capitalised and put academy ahead 31-30. Arguing amongst each other, the Carrick side, previously unbeaten were struck for ideas. The mighty 3’s tightened their defence and closed out Carrick for a tremendous victory.