Point keeps Greenisland up, while Carrick live to fight on

Carrick Ladies on the charge against Greenisland Ladies in the local derby INLT 10-214-AM

On a day of high drama in the Ulster Hockey Union’s Senior Two, three teams - Carrick Ladies, Greenisland Ladies, and Kilkeel Ladies - faced the prospect of automatic relegation to UHU Senior Three if any one of them lost their respective final-day match on Saturday.

And at the end of the afternoon, it was Kilkeel who had to swallow the bitter pill of both defeat and relegation when they lost heavily to Grosvenor.

A grimly-contested but free-flowing scoreless draw between Carrick and Greenisland saw Greenisland consolidate their Senior Two status, while Carrick, finishing just a single point behind Greenisland, have another chance to do the same, having earned themselves an end-of-season play-off against the second-placed team in Senior Three.

“It’s obviously been a very big day for all three clubs,” said Carrick president Peter Stevenson after all the results had come in on Saturday.

“It’s a pity someone had to go down as its been a fiercely competitive season at the foot of this season’s Senior Two table. At some stage or other throughout the campaign, all three of us have occupied bottom spot for a period of time.

“So, its commiserations with Kilkeel and congratulations to Greenisland for having successfully pulled off a hard-earned escape from the bottom two. As far as we’re concerned, we can at least go into the Senior Two / Senior Three play-off with our heads held high as the entire team played really well today.

“We lost 2-0 to Greenisland when we played them in November, but we were much more competitive today as a team.

“Just a few more performances like that earlier in the season and we’d certainly have finished safely in mid-table. Our big challenge now will be keeping match-fit until the play-off game as this will probably be at least a month away.

“A lot of the Senior Three teams have still a number of games to play before our opponents will be known. But our coaches Neil McConnell and Davy Menaul are already working on this and, especially after today’s morale-boosting escape from the spectre of automatic relegation, I’ve every confidence the girls will be ready and fully prepared for this play-off match when it is eventually scheduled.”