Carrick RFC Girls Line Out For Munster

Carrick-on-Suir RFC’s Aoife Moore, Chloe Blackmore and Kate English all wore the red of Munster with great distinction in last Saturday’s Under-18 interprovincial blitz meetings with Ulster and Leinster.

Courtesy of Dermot Keyes, Carrick-on-Suir PRO

Their club mates Zoe Lynch, Ciara Lonergan, and Faye Drohan, who also made the cut for the provincial squad, were unfortunately ruled out of last Saturday's action due to injury.

The matches were played at Westmanstown in West Dublin, with Munster seeing off Ulster in their opening match before losing 3-0 in a tightly fought contest with Leinster in the second fixture of the afternoon.

"This was a great achievement for all involved, to have three players playing in a Munster team and to have six players from our club represented in the squad," according to Club President Tony Musiol. "Now lads and men, beat that!"

The strides which the Ladies Club has made in its short existence have been nothing short of phenomenal, and their efforts were saluted by Ireland international Niamh Briggs during her recent visit to Carrick-on-Suir.

"Kate O'Loughlin has shown the way for these young players given what she achieved with Munster and Ireland," Niamh told this newspaper recently.

"There's clearly a lot of great rugby talent in the area, and they're in fantastic hands with the coaches the club are fortunate to have looking after them, so fingers crossed, we'll see some of these girls developing into top class senior players with both Munster and Ireland a few years down the line."

For a locality synonymous with cycling and soccer talent, and with its fair share of precocious hurlers down through the years, Carrick-on-Suir now looks in line to become synonymous with outstanding ladies rugby footballers. We shall watch this group's progress with no little interest in the coming seasons!

Meanwhile, Carrick's First XV got their Munster Junior League Division Three campaign back on track thanks to a 53-3 victory over Bantry Bay-Dunmanway at Tybroughney on Sunday last.

After four rounds of fixtures, Carrick now find themselves positioned fifth out of 11 clubs, with two wins and two defeats to their name.

This leaves our First XV eight points off the pace being set by table toppers Ballincollig (17), with Douglas, Abbeyfeale and Dungarvan occupying the next slots in J3 with 14, 14 and 12 points respectively.

Next up for Carrick is a trip to Fermoy on December 8th, who have won one of their four opening fixtures and sit eighth on the table on six points.

The importance of a victory in Fermoy is made plain by two factors: 1 – the lads can't afford another slip-up if they're to remain in the promotion hunt and 2 – there won't be another League match until January 19th when they host Charleville.

So the message couldn't be clearer: the fire that was lit on Sunday last must burn come December 8th. And one imagines captain David Kiersey shall relay that message at training over the next few weeks.