Carrick U13s win away in Tuam
Carrick on Shannon RFC U13s travelled to Tuam for their second league game of the season last Saturday morning. While many games for various sporting codes were victims of the weekend's weather locally, Tuam’s main pitch was in perfect shape.
Playing with a slight breeze behind them, Carrick applied the early pressure. After a period of decent sustained phase play, a well worked team try was finished off by Cavan McGourty as he jinked his way through the defence to touch down to the left of the posts.
Tuam hit back a few minutes later with some decent play of their own to score, conversion missed. Carrick immediately raised the tempo of the game and with it, they began to carve open the Tuam defence more frequently. Ryan McElhone who was a constant threat all afternoon finished in the right corner with a powerful run after some excellent play with Hewson. Conversion just short.
Indeed Carrick should have had another couple of scores at least before the break only for stout Tuam defence at Carrick led 10-5 at halftime.
The second half was a much tighter affair with Tuam taking the game to Carrick a bit more. However Carrick weren't going to be intimidated and McElhone struck again in the corner after some great work by Kieran, Murtagh, Hewson and Lee.
With only a few minutes to go, Tuam snuck over for a try and successfully converted. From there on in, Tuam threw everything but the kitchen sink at the Carrick.
Carrick's scrum and lineouts had been excellent all day and they were severely tested in the last few mins. With Nato Zondagh providing leadership beyond his years, any hint of an opening for Tuam was quickly closed by the Carrick squad.
With seconds to go Fionn McWeeney bundled a Tuam man into touch right on the try line to prevent a certain try. With the last play, he took the resulting throw, and found Daragh Beirne who kicked to touch to seal a fully deserved 15-12 win for Carrick.
Great effort by two men making their debut at U13 level this weekend - Quade and Nathan.