Carrick opened their Championship 1 account with a bonus point win against Randalstown on Sunday afternoon at Woodlawn.

Report and pictures by Nick Murray.

Things started off brightly with both sides making their presence felt physically. The first quarter saw both sides have periods with the ball, but early in the second quarter it was Carrick who took the lead after a kick into the goal area saw Katie Hughes beat the Randalstown defence to the ball. Kirsten Todd kicked the conversion, for her first score of the afternoon, giving Carrick a 7 – 0 lead

In response, ‘Town then exerted a period of sustained pressure, but Carrick broke away with a great run down the left by Hughes and despite being well tackled by ‘Town’s Megan Mackintosh Hughes superbly offloaded to Sabrina Higgins who got as close to the posts as she could to touch down, but not close enough for the conversion to count. 12-0

A pacey diagonal run from Town’s centre Erin Millar was eventually halted by Carrick’s Todd. The ball found its way out to the right where Carrick’s Higgins went on a run down the wing, offloading to the chasing Kennedy Herron who continued the run and crossed to give Carrick another try. Todd added the conversion for a 19 – 0 lead.

Randalstown got on the scoreboard through Mackintosh who broke from the 10 metre line to see off the Carrick chasers and take the score to 19 – 5 at half time.

Within a minute of the restart Carrick re-asserted their dominance. A fantastic angled run by Todd out to the left and then back towards the posts, evading her opposite number, stretched Carrick’s lead to 24 – 5.

Town largely dominated the period following Carrick’s try, but had nothing on the board to show for it. Eventually the pressure paid off and Town’s centre Hickinson topped a strong display with a try, converted by Megan Finney to give a final score of 24 – 12 in Carrick’s favour.

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