Friday, December 12, 2008

Leinster Men's weekend preview

While many other sports are winding down for the year, the majority of men's senior hockey teams have double weekends coming up. In divison one, Corinthian and Fingal looks the most enticing prospect - especially considering the airport-side's amazing recovery from a 3-1 half-time deficit earlier this term to win 5-3.

Corinthian look a decent side under John McInroy but have not picked up points against their would-be rivals for IHL places so this game takes on added significance. YM would be another believing their current position is not a true reflection of ability and have shown decent form since their spate of injuries cleared up.

Glenanne and Three Rock will hope to avoid slip ups on their travels to Kilkenny and Railway respectively while UCD and Pembroke's game is off due to exam pressures.

Probably the most interesting story of the weekend, though, comes from division two where Trinity have had an innovative proposal agreed to by both the Leinster disciplinary committee and the Umpires Association.
The club gave Barry Glavey (pictured below right) an internal one-match ban for his red card against Weston but have added to that by offering his services as an umpire for two games in Leinster as a sort of 'community service'.

The matches will be of a level of the umpire association's chosing to make sure it is of the right level and Glavey will umpire in conjunction with Keith Lewis - the umpire who issued the red card. As a result of this initiative, the disciplinary committee saw fit not to impose any further sanction on this occasion.

His club face Avoca this weekend while Clontarf hope to put a controversial weekend behind them in Esker as they face Weston. Skerries and Bray tussle in a crucial top-of-the-table clash.

Sunday sees four of the Mills Cup second round ties in action. Clontarf host Railway Union at the bullring as the division two high-flyers will hope to provide another shock after they eliminated UCD in round one.

Trinity coach Ronan Pelow got his first sight of his original club Corinthian in midweek and was impressed with what he saw and so is hoping for a big performance from his charges. His squad includes Aengus Stanley, Stu Cinnamond, Barry Glavey and Nick Odlum - all of CHC extraction.

Glenanne come up against former maestro Nasir Munir as Suttonians visit while Naas and Avoca vye for a quarter-final berth.

Division 1 (Saturday)
Railway Union vs Three Rock Rovers, 2pm, Park Avenue; Kilkenny vs Glenanne, 1pm, Kilkenny College; Corinthian vs Fingal, 2.15pm, Whitechurch Park; Monkstown vs YMCA, 3pm, Rathdown

Division 2 (Saturday)
Dublin University vs Avoca, 1.30pm, Santry; Weston vs Clontarf, 2.30pm, Esker; Skerries vs Bray, 1.45pm, Skerries

Leinster Senior Mills Cup (Sunday)
Glenanne vs Suttonians, 2pm, Glenanne Park; Naas vs Avoca, 1.30pm, Caragh Road; Clontarf vs Railway Union, 2.45pm, Mount Temple; Corinthian vs Dublin University, 2pm, Whitechurch Park
Postponed: Monkstown vs Kilkenny, TRR v Bray; Skerries v Pembroke; Fingal v YMCA

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mick MacGuinness go on with the predictions!!!

Anonymous said...

Crackin weekend of hockey!!! Best of luck to all teams.

Anonymous said...

Getting Glavey to umpire games after a red-card is a great idea!

Anonymous said...

Red-Card = Umpiring community service is a very innovative idea. We need to increase the amount of young people giving umpiring a go.

Would be great to see Fulton umpiring with Ray O'Connor at some stage!

Anonymous said...

I would definitely be interested in getting into umpiring. Anyone know how you go about it? Is there a course you register for or do you just go out and do it at a low level and learn on the job?

Anonymous said...

It should be added on top of any suspension-not in lieu.

1 match suspension for red card is pretty lenient if you ask me. Standard should be 3 games and more depending on severity

Anonymous said...

refereeing community service, brilliant!!

Derek Kirwan said...

I think for once the punishment fits the crime perfectly (red card was for verbal). Fair play to Trinity for getting the player to see it from the umpires perspective.

If this was a regular occurence there would be some interesting umpires on the scene. Might even help the umpires see things from a players perspective.

Anonymous said...

umpires can have second thoughts too and make mistakes- they are only human- that is why in other codes video evidence is used. so how can you say it's lenient if you weren't there

Anonymous said...

so are the branch more or less saying that refereeing a match is seen as a punishment

Anonymous said...

It is a good idea but i agree that a club imposing a 1 match ban for a red card is very lenient, standard IS 3 matches even 2 would be more appropriate however maybe the incident didnt merit a red card in trinity's eyes..?

Anonymous said...

Queso should be an umpire

Anonymous said...

Ian Gorman of trinity has also worn the red of CHC

Anonymous said...

Div two sides will struggle againt the div one ( Reserves ) on sunday

Anonymous said...

What was his red card for?There seems to have been a few so far this season and people dont actually say what each red was received for.Why is this?If somebody cracked someone over the head with a stick then say it.It's highly unlikely that if someone clearly states the reason for any given red card, no matter the reason, that you will be faced with a court conjunction.Feed me with facts please.Not tip-toeing around the subject or hearsay.

Stephen Findlater said...

Glavey's red was for foul and abusive language directed at an umpire in this case.

Anonymous said...

Why have UCD got another postponment. Other teams affected by exams too.

Anonymous said...

Half of our college team have exams on saturday itself. Other teams might be effected by two to three players not available, not most of their squad! we have had games postponed already this season and we are already bak up wit as many played as most other teams.

Anonymous said...

True other teams might be affected by exams but its more then likely that the whole UCD team is affected by exams not just one or two players

Anonymous said...

why does it say Clontarf hope to cause ANOTHER shock? since when is a team with a 100 per cent win record in div 2 beating a team bottom of div 1 who are really struggling such a shock?

Anonymous said...

yea but not their whole squad

Anonymous said...

yes you're right other teams are affected by exams, although probably not as much as an entire team of students in the middle of their university's christmas exam period......

Anonymous said...

spring a debate here: if college hockey was like schools hockey and you had to play for college if you went there, how good would ucd and trinity be??then you'd also have the likes of ucc, dit, dcu. it would make for a serious amount more teams in the top two leagues.

Anonymous said...

i reckon ucd could have a quality team if dat was the case something like this: GK:Stephen O'Keefe/David Fitzgerald(take your pick), RB:Rob Lynch, CBs:Ben Grogan and Shane O'Donnel, LB:Nick Dee, RM:Karl Smith CM:David Robinson LM:Ronan Motyer, LW:Gavin O'Halloran CF:Mick O'connor RW:Robbie McFarlane.think thats a team that could mix it up in the top 5.

Anonymous said...

mitch darling and ali haughton are in ucd too.

Anonymous said...

A few more players that would be eligible for ucd this year: neil lyons, peter blakeney, gary shaw

Anonymous said...

tim hill and shanahan from TRR aswell, Scott Lowry from pembroke, people in smurfit doing masters too eg blakney, there's probably loads more but a university could never force people to play for them and clubs are obviously eager to hang onto their best players so it would never happen.

Anonymous said...

In Reply to above comment:

"Div two sides will struggle againt the div one ( Reserves ) on sunday"

Clontarf just played Railway off the park and comfortably won 4-2!!!

Anyone know if any other Div two sides "struggled" as much as Clontarf did??????