Monaghan made the trip to Carrickfergus on Saturday afternoon for a Towns Cup fixture. The home side, despite playing two divisions higher, knew they were going to get a tough game against the runaway leaders of Championship 3.

Monaghan opened the scoring with an early penalty which was the only score in the opening quarter of a tight game.

Carrick got on the scoreboard 20 minutes in with J Garford going over for the opening try and it looked as though the game was going to go to script with Simon White crossing just past the half hour to take the score to 12 – 3 in Carrick’s favour after Dan Curley added the conversion.

Monaghan chipped away with a . . .