News in brief

* With the season under two weeks away, there has been a flurry of moves in both the men's and women's leagues in recent weeks.

Bray Ladies have been the busiest recuiters with Roy Horsfield taking over as coach, Sarah Scott coming in from Loreto as a player/assistant coach while Steph Hall and international goalkeeper have moved from Pembroke.
Hermes have picked up another promising youngster with Deirdre Duke moving from Three Rock Ladies.

Genesis, meanwhile, have brought in Dutch coach Coen van Putten - who will also take UCD's men this year - and will hope to keep Laura Barry and Hannah Leggett fit for the whole season as they aim for promotion back to division one.

Pembroke's men have brought in Michael O'Connor from UCD and have a German player trialling with the first team squad on their tour to Surbiton next week. Patrick Good, though, has left for YMCA though will sit out the early part of the season with David Robinson due to injury.

Three Rock's men, meanwhile, have brought in Patrick Shanahan from Bandon and David Storey from UCD.

I will be publishing a full list of movers next week as part of the preseason review.

* On his return to the States in June, Monkstown's Liam Walsh has just been selected on the USA under-21 squad for the PanAm games in Trinidad in October.

* Finally, a warning for all the facebook fiends out there, Olympic hockey player Nikki Hudson (pictured) has apologised over inappropriate comments she posted on the social networking site about the Spanish men's hockey team.

She wrote on the site about wanting to be "impaled'' by members of the Spanish men's hockey team. According to News Ltd papers, Ms Hudson said she did not realise her site was available for members of the public to see and blamed the comments on her sense of humour.

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