Railway's nine-point advantage over the table going into the second half of the season means that breaking the Loreto/Hermes duopoly is there for the taking should they recreate their pre-Christmas form.
They begin the year with a trip to Alex who will be without Sylvia O'Mahony for the rest of the season but produced some decent results before Christmas to nestle into fourth place and could cause a few problems with Lesle-Ann George on board.
Railway's fringe-player Jenny Kenefick, meanwhile, has returned to her native Cork C of I.
Elsewhere, Loreto and UCD looks to be the most keenly contested battle with the Beaufort side hoping to bounce back after surprise reverses at the hands of Pembroke and Bray. The student's games have all been particularly tight, only conceding six times but only scoring nine and remain in the midst of a dog-fight for IHL places for 2009/10.
Glenanne will hope to use home advantage to outdo Trinity and keep the pressure on those fighting for a top five place while Hermes should have too much in the tank for Trinity.
In the second series of games, Bray against Pembroke was one of the stand-out fixtures given the move down the DART line of Mary Goode, Elaine Brommel and Stephanie Hall. The gloom predicted for Pembroke never came to pass, though, and their 2-1 win over Loreto has them in the mix.
Youngsters Hayley O'Donnell and Alice Ward were central to Alexandra College's league triumph and have been added to the first team squad while Mount Sackville's Noelle Farrell showed no fear of locking horns at centre-midfield when faced with Nikki Symmons.
Bray, for their part, are at the head of the three-way battle to avoid the drop with Corinthian and Trinity with a key set of fixtures on January 31 where Trinity host the Glens and Bray face the reds.
Division One: Loreto v UCD, Beaufort, 2.15pm; Glenanne v Corinthian, Tallaght, 1.30pm; Bray v Pembroke Wanderers, Loreto, Bray, 2.30pm; Hermes v Trinity, St Andrew's, 1.15pm; Old Alexandra v Railway Union, Milltown, 1.15.
3 comments:
railway aren't so invinsible now are they!! hahahahha a poor draw with alex....barely scraped through it
But the important thing is they did scrap through....all teams have their off days but Railway still managed to come out with a point.
railway have never nor will they ever walk around leinster hockey looking down thier noses at other teams, that is not how the team was built or who they are. Its people with short memories that cant remember where railway were 3/4 years ago and how hard they have worked to get to where they are now. Comments like that sound typical of Irish begrudgery (in this current ecconomic climate)......lets see what happens over the next few months....
chop chop.
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