Saturday, January 31, 2009

Men's IHL: Round Three, Saturday round-up


Blakeney's Goal vs. Garvey from Threerockroversones on Vimeo.

Group A
Cookstown 0 Pembroke 0
Pembroke and Cookstown shared the spoils after a scrappy nil-all at Coolnafranky. Ivan Steen missed the most gilt-edged chance, failing to convert a penalty stroke.

Alan Sothern and Gordon Elliott had the better open play chances in the first quarter before the second and third periods were littered by sin-binnings - Stephen Cuddy, Keith Black and Alan Giles doing time.

Iain Hughes made two good saves from Sothern to keep Cookstown in it, though the Tyrone side dominated possession. Giles added a yellow to his collection in last quarter but Cookstown could not take advantage of the ten man situation despite two penalty corners.




Cork Harlequins 1 (Paul Lombard) Annadale 3 (Paul Jackson, Jonny Quigley, Fraser Mills)
Harlequins lost their third successive game in bizarre circumstances as they dominated possession, winning 12 corners and yet were rarely in the game on the scoreboard.

'Dale were two up inside seven minutes with Paul Jackson netting a stunner (pictured bottom left) after Ian Hamilton's faked pass opened an opportunity on his reverse. Jonny Quigley's was less beautiful, flashing a shot across goal but took a lucky deflection off goalkeeper Chris Daunt to deflect into his own goal.

A litany of chances went abegging before Paul Lombard finally got one back from the spot in the 63rd minute but Fraser Mills sucker-punched with a reverse. The results leaves the winner of Instonians and Glenanne to take spot on Sunday afternoon.

Group B
Lisnagarvey 2 (Mark Raphael, Brian Waring) Three Rock Rovers 5 (Tim Hill, Mitch Darling 2, Peter Blakeney, Michael Maguire)
Three Rock bounced back from their Fingal defeat to nab a last-minute bonus point against Lisnagarvey. Timmy Hill got the only goal of the first half scored a tidy opener in the 31st minute of a low-key half.

The second half proved more exciting, Andy McConnell set up Mitch Darling for a tap-in to make it 2-0 before former international Brian Waring cracked in a superb goal to bring the game back to life.

Alan Bothwell went to the bin soon after but Rovers were not deterred as Darling made it 3-1, despite the player deficit. Mark Raphael livened it up once more from a corner second phase with seven minutes remaining.

But two late strikes from Peter Blakeney (pictured, right) and Maguire stole the win and an invaluable late bonus.

Fingal 3 (Mick McGuinness 2, Derek O'Gorman) Banbridge 5 (Ross McCandless 2, Eugene Magee, Simon Magowan, Dane Ward)
Banbridge kept the only 100pc record in the men's side intact with a 5-3 away win at ALSAA. Like the Three Rock game, only one first half goal went in despite the high final score. Ross McCandless got it from a corner won by Simon Magowan.

Eugene Magee added a drag-flick before Mick McGuinness added to his list of goalkeeping victims. This time, Gareth Lennox found his corner shot unstoppable. He potted two to level the game but a minute into the final quarter Magowan got a freak goal that looped over Nigel Grothier after deflecting off a Fingal knee.

McCandless made the gap two once again, Derek O'Gorman slotted home before Dane Ward netted a controversial late corner to deny a Fingal bonus point in the last minute.

Cork C of I 6 (John Bruton 2, John Jermyn 3, Stephen Parker) Monkstown 3 (Gareth Watkins 3)
Monkstown's unlikely chances of progressing are now over though Cork C of I had to wait until the last nine minutes before pulling away.

Jonny Bruton gave his side a fourth-minute lead, which was doubled by John Jermyn at the end of the first quarter.

But Monkstown had no intention of rolling over as skipper Gareth Watkins converted their only two corners of the second quarter to draw level.


Jermyn re-established C of I’s lead after the break, only for Watkins to complete his hat-trick and cancel it out again. But Jermyn matched that feat to put C of I 4-3 up, and late goals from Bruton and Stephen Parker secured the bonus point.



*More pictures from Eoin Tyrell of Cork Harlequins vs Annadale can be see here

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glen's 3 - Instonians 0!

Anonymous said...

glens 3-0 instonians

Anonymous said...

Went across town to watch this one and was fully expecting this result. We werent disappointed at all. Instonians look like a team on the way down despite their recent January flourish. Overage (some of those guys looked really old), overweight and over rated in some of their current and ex internationals. Shows you how weak the league in the north must be if these guys are competing with the supposed big boys.Also the talk on the sideline was that Mark Gleghorne has declared to Britain!!!!! Can anyone confirm or deny this and if so who on earth has been telling him he is good enough to make it. Makes me wonder sometimes

Anonymous said...

Cork C of I against Monkstown was one of the best games of hockey played in this country in a long time

Anonymous said...

so lucky pembroke - - should have been beaten.

Anonymous said...

ha,so lucky pembroke??what game were you at or were you even there?!david harte hadn't a save to make for the game other than the stroke whereas at the other end ian hughes made three good saves from alan sothern and the same player hit the crossbar with a drag flick.Gordy Elliott also had a shot saved as did Fulton.Not quite lucky,but for some good goalkeeping they would have won the match

Anonymous said...

Watch the Glens v Inst game. Glenanne was very impressive. Two nice drags from Butler although Shaw was best player on the pitch. They will be hard to beat. Where could i find the IHL group tables Stephen. The website seems to be wrong in Pembrokes group. who do people fancy for the semis. Its very tight in both groups.

Anonymous said...

Semi Final

pembroke v Banbridge

Glens v Rovers

Queso said...

That's an ambitious but definitely possible semi-final pairing. Great to see 3 Leinster sides there and with the possibility of two EHL places next season the semi-finals will take on added importance.

Anonymous said...

Any photos of cookstown pembroke game!??

Anonymous said...

The IHL seems to be a step in the right direction for Irish hockey. To have the top teams in the country play on a fairly regular basis can only be good for for the development of hockey standards. How would people feel about a full national league with promotion to and regulation from it?

Anonymous said...

Re: previous message - sorry meant to type relegation!

Anonymous said...

Promotion to and regulation would be difficult to manage unless all divisions changed to all-Ireland basis. Which I think is would be unfeasible both cost and commitment wise

Anonymous said...

2 more drags for McGuinness against one of irelands top keepers, he seems to be improving all season...how far is he of the top draggers around?

Anonymous said...

quite far off,so many top level international flickers around,mcguinness comes nowhere near,good to see him learning and improving though

Anonymous said...

With regards the comments below about Pembroke being lucky vs Cookstown here are my thoughts. I am an avid follower of all hockey in Ireland. I follow this blog, the Munster blog and also look up some Ulster teams websites to read their match reports. After following Cookstowns all season it was with some trepidation that we travelled up on Saturday for the match assuming that we were coming up against a team that played the fastest, flowing hockey the world has ever seen. How wrong we were. I have to tip my hat to some excellent spin from their PR people because I have just read their latest report on our game and it certainly wasnt the game I witnessed. The mere fact that the beginning of the article suggests that "Most believe that these teams are the top two in Irish hockey at the present moment" shows the spin being produced out of County Tyrone. Perhaps most people haven't had the pleasure of watching Pembroke, Three Rock Rovers, Cork C of I in full flow but it was certainly more entertaining than anything produced by the "Red Army".The mere fact that they named Ian Hughes as man of the match would refute the claims below that Pembroke were lucky. Anyway, congratualtions to Cookstown on putting on a good night on Saturday!!

Anonymous said...

Cookstown are a young team who are still learning their trade at senior level.The pace at senior level is vastly different than that experienced playing for a 2nd team. At no time this season has cookstown produced the fastest flowing hockey ever seen in the world - - but we have still won the Kirk Cup and hopefully, if things keep going well, will again win the Ulster Premier League title. At the moment we are still in the ISC and IHL. For such a young team this is tremendous and testament to the good coaching structures at cookstown - - the fact that we have 7 guys (6 of whom play regulary for 1st)in the Ulster U21 INTER PRO squad speaks volumes. The game against Pembroke was looked upon as a test as to where we are as regards holding our own against top class teams -which pembroke are. Ok, we came out with a draw, we missed a stroke, we won the short corner count 5 -2 BUT we were lucky that I Hughes was in great form and deservedly won mom award.For some of our young guys this was probably the best team they will have played against but we weren't beaten - - so they can hold their heads high. Good to know also that our web is so popular.