The Dee arrived at Carrick carrying a few niggles from their very creditable performance against Queens three days earlier but also missing a few due to a combination of injury, unavailability and manflu!!In a game of four 20s the Dee started well enough playing down the hill on Carrick’s second pitch and with the elements! A well taken converted try was executed by the men in red and green in the first half but more worryingly the Dee were finding great difficulty in regularly penetrating a stubborn Carrick defence. The sides turned around for the second two quarters leading 7-0 but Carrick pulled this back to 7-5 with the last play of the third quarter. By this stage the Dee had lost skipper Ally Lockhart to a minor strain and Stephen Adams to a head injury. The loss of the influential Lockhart seemed to leave the Dee a little directionless but it was the loss of Adams which was the key given that he had been the stand-out forward on the pitch all afternoon. Carrick sensed blood in the air and proceeded to score a number of further tries in the fourth quarter – one of which was brilliantly executed but the others due to weak Dee defence. The unfamiliarity with each other of the Dee fifteen left on the pitch in the final quarter certainly played its part together with weariness from playing two games in such a short space of time but the coaches will certainly be concentrating on this area during the course of the week before the first Q1 game against CIYMS this incoming Saturday. Aside from those mentioned above Jack Cooke & Chris Good put in a creditable afternoons work together with the multi-positional Matthew Stockton. Also great to see David Keys, Conor Fulton and Thomas Slane back in the fold after returning from University and a plethora of youngsters eager to make their mark. A very rare but thoroughly deserved win for Carrick against the Dee and we wish them every success in their league campaign in Q2 this season. The Dee, on the other hand, now know where their early pre-season issues lie and will be working hard on Tuesday & Thursday night to address these weaknesses.