Friday, July 11, 2008

The Hooks: Men's Newcomer of the Year

Leinster hockey is seemingly becoming younger and younger with the increased level of professionalism seeing a number of players in their mid to late 20s dropping to second’s level.

As such, there is a whole myriad of youngsters breaking through. Virtually YM’s whole side appeared to be competing in their first full season in division one, Kyle Good has started scoring the odd goal or two for Rovers while Glenanne starlet Shane O’Donoghue is one to watch for the future.

Monkstown’s Stephen Cole almost took the title, being incredibly assured at right-back but his St Andrews’ schoolmate, Stuart Loughrey stepped up to the top level brilliantly when Conor Harte and Ronan Flannery were ruled out, featuring in both Club Championship and Irish Senior finals.

Winner: Stuart Loughrey

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stephen

Had to look up 'Myraid'.

Anonymous said...

word has j lynch is moving 2 bray for 2grand a week

Queso said...

Congratulations Stu!

Anonymous said...

thanks "cheese", i'm delighted, it wa such a big year!

Stuart

Anonymous said...

i also heard lynchy was on his way to bray, apparently they got him some job and they are willing to fork out 2k upfront!
watch out for bray, we will be in the top flight yet.

Anonymous said...

Congrats Stu....well deserved!!

Anonymous said...

stephen cole was easily the best newcomer of the year, played far better then stuart in the final wen stephen cole was in left midfield up against fulton and he held his own.stephen cole is the deserved winner of this.

Anonymous said...

fair enough stu had an ok season but if you ask me styles from pembroke was better be a mile.

Anonymous said...

i didn't even notice cole in the final,which isn't putting the youngster down,he was up against a two time olympian with almost 200 caps to his name.Lockery was quality in all the big games this season,not looking out of his depth at all,deserved winner.

Anonymous said...

How couldnt you notice cole.... Id put my house on u being a pembroke fan or player. what game were u watching?

Anonymous said...

"he was up against a two time olympian with almost 200 caps to his name"

I'm pretty sure it was explained in the comment how you couldn't notice cole.and as stated,it's nothing against the young lad,he was one of 15 others too,not one monkstown player stood out in any way on that day.Saw him through the cup run however and he performed well for a player just breaking into the scene.and no,not a pembroke fan or player,actually a 'town player.

Anonymous said...

stu was on a team that made him look allot better that he was,he had two full international defenders to pick up his mistakes.
cole is my pick

Anonymous said...

A load of nonsense,loughrey deserved to win the award,he performed well in a top team in top games.

got to remember that these picks mean nothing also,they are just findlaters opinion,anyone could set up a blog and put down there choice,then you would have cole etc winning others peoples "awards",perhaps some sort of voting system might have stopped this from happening.

Anonymous said...

Although not as young as some of the talents being mentioned here, I thought Jonathan Kane from Glenanne had a great year. Broke into the starting forward line up for Paris and never relinquished that spot. Played magnificently in Paris as well apparently

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