A bright but chilly afternoon in Larne saw a Larne-Carrick-Ophir (Reds) combined side take on Clogher Valley (Blues) in the Girls U16 Shield.
Report and pictures by Nick Murray.
From the kick-off the Reds were on the front foot, and with only 2 minutes on the clock C. McClean (Larne) went over to get the first points on the board. 5-0

Shortly afterwards R. Starrett (Larne) crossed, swiftly followed by McClean again, and Larne were 15 – 0 up with only 10 minutes gone.
McClean’s hat-trick shortly followed with a nice conversion by F. Arthurs (Carrick) to make it 22 – 0 with the threat of a big defeat for the Blues.

It was all Reds and McClean was next on the scoresheet again with her 4th and again a nice conversion by Arthurs to make it 29 – 0.
To great cheers from all the watching supporters, the Blues #3 Ava went on a fantastic 25m run, breaking through tackles and with only one goal in mind, crossed after 25 minutes to get points on the board and get the Blues underway to give a 29 – 5 score line at the break.

McClean, once again, was the centre of attention shortly after the break when she bagged her 5th try of the afternoon to restore the 29 point lead for the Reds.
The Blues seemed to have either had a great half-time team talk, or the Reds were lifting off the gas, but either way they were seeing much more of the ball in the early part of the second half.
Despite some great tackling from Larne’s Starrett throughout this period, it was no surprise when J. Black went over to add a second try for the Blues, nicely converted by K. Nicholl to rattle the score along to 34 – 12.

Reds substitute M Fleming (Carrick) collected the ball 5 metres out after a period of Reds pressure and despite attention from several Blues defenders went over to loud cheers from the Reds’ players and supporters alike to take any notion of a turnaround out of the picture, with the conversion attempt only narrowly missed to the right of the posts to leave the score at 39-12.

Once again Ava went on a run for the Blues, this time from near the halfway line, and could not be stopped as she got the Blues to 17 points. Another great conversion from Nicholl took the Blues’ tally to 19.

Still in the ascendency, the Blues’ Black notched up her second try of the afternoon for Nicholl to once again show her kicking prowess and bring the Blues to a very respectable 26 points, now just 13 behind.
The Blues will have been praying for another 10 minutes given their 21-10 2nd half performance, but time was not on their side, and the match ended with a Reds victory at 39 – 26 and progress to a semi final against Ballymoney-Rainey Combined on or before 3rd April.