Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Neville Cup Semi-finals

YMCA 4 (Andrew Walker, Luke Chadwick, Rob Whelan, David Robinson) TRR 1 (Niall Denham)

With YM's seconds drawing with Rovers second string two days previously, their firsts had little problem disposing a similar outift last night at Claremont Road as Three Rock fielded just Ali Haughton, Tim Hill and Colin Huet from their regular first team squad.

With matches against Glenanne, Fingal and Pembroke in the coming weeks, Rovers decided to play an understrength side.

As such, YM eased to the win after Andy Walker gave them the lead early on with further goals from Wesley schoolboys Luke Chadwick and Rob Whelan. Niall Denham got one back from a drag-flick via Stephen Barry's stick.

Railway Union 3 (Mark English, Peter English 2) Glenanne 3 (Shane O'Donoghue 2, Jonathon Kane)(Glenanne win on 4-1 penalty strokes)
Railway were denied a surprise place in the final of the Neville Cup by the cruellest of means, as they lost out strokes to Glenanne.

In the absence of Graham Shaw, Stephen Butler and Alan Browne, Shane O'Donoghue stepped up to the plate, scrambling home a rebound from Joe Brennan's drag-flick. Railway levelled early in the second half through Mark English but O'Donoghue gave the Glens the lead once again with a deflection from a crash ball but the elder English brother got his second to equalise to force extra-time while John Keogh and Brendan Parsons -against his old club - were both sin-binned.

Jonathon Kane finished off a great move to give the Tallaght-side the lead for the third time in silver goal but Peter English scored from close range to send the game to strokes.

Brennan, Gary Shaw, O'Donoghue and David Shaw all netted their strokes while Steven Doran saved the first Railway effort before Kevin O'Brien fired wide to end the Park Avenue club's final dreams.

Final: YMCA vs Glenanne, December 26, Admission free (this cup is run as a charity event and buckets collecting will be present on the day)

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

It will be a great final

Queso said...

Yep, should be a great day... Hot Ports and Mince Pies all round!!

...and a chance to show off the Christmas Jumpers :-)

Anonymous said...

this game will no doubt be a very lively affair. Whats the schedule for the day, are there other macthes going on before or after it

Anonymous said...

pity that rovers didnt put out more of a team. feel that ym are improving a lot at the moment, and looking forward to playing a full rovers team soon. wonder why those three 1sts only played?? ali haughton was impressive with good passing but other than that, rovers didnt do much


ym associate

Anonymous said...

Ye if last weeks encounter between the two teams is anything to go buy then this will be a great game!

Anonymous said...

mark english is the older brother.

Anonymous said...

how good is o'donaghue? what school is he in again?

Anonymous said...

mark english scored his stroke as well

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Anonymous said...

T hear the three rock side was very weak with 3rd XI players playing. Pity to field such a poor team

Anonymous said...

Suppose its better than what Pembroke did last yr and turn up with a joke of a team for the final. Hopefully this yr we will have 2 teams as close to full strenght as possible.

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Anonymous said...

will glenanne field a full strength side or will they be wary of their internationals playing too many games

Anonymous said...

gary shaw scored a stroke does no one remember freo haha

Anonymous said...

goes to show top teams cant always field a full strength side in this competition and no matter what anybody says it IS a competition that people are not worried about winning or losing,shown with pembroke last year and TRR this year.However it is a good tool for introducing young players to senior hockey,this worked well for pembroke last year with stuart loughrey,conor mcdermot and stuart garrett all getting their first tastes of senior hockey in this competition and have since gone on to become full first XI squad members

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Stephen Findlater said...

Regarding the Railway v Glenanne game, I'm getting an increasing number of blatantly offensive comments and, while there is some sensible ones also coming in, I will not be accepting any more comments on the matter.

I'm not sure they add anything new to the debate and most are driving an unhealthy wedge between the clubs. I was at their league game earlier this season and stray comments were thrown out from supporters and is not something I want to spill over onto this forum and exacerbate the problem.

Anonymous said...

Exacerbate....good word....I'd expect no less from you tho Sticky.

Anonymous said...

Well done to Railway, you really gave Glenanne a run for there money, great to see all your hard work and new coach are paying off - never mind you might get them next time!!