Sunday, April 5, 2009

Bray earn shot at Division One

Bray 4 (Stephen Jones 2, Simon Cox, James Hardiman) Dublin University 3 (Barry Glavey, Daire Coady, Ben Hewitt)

Bray have a shot at an instant-return to division one after Simon Cox's late goal secured victory at Loreto. Trinity made the early running, taking the lead through Barry Glavey but former UCD and Railway striker Stephen Jones on the double and James Hardiman's single swung the tie right back into the Wicklow side's favour.

Former Trinity captains Daire Coady and Ben Hewitt made the game equal once more but Cox popped up for the winner which would prove crucial, in combination with other results, in claiming second place with a game to go.

Skerries 3 (Alan Early, Sean Lawlor, Ali McMahon) Clontarf 7 (Rob Abbott 3, Derek Ledwidge 2, Dan Treacy, Luke Hayden)
Clontarf ended Skerries' promotion chances with an eye-catching 7-3 win over their Northside rivals, quashing their possibility of finishing second in the table. Rob Abbott's drag-flick and penalty stroke made it 2-0 before Alan Early's deflection pulled a goal back.

Derek Ledwidge restored the two goal advantage by the break, though, with a spectacular reverse. But Skerries fought back to make it 3-3 with Ali McMahon and Sean Lawlor on target and the chance of breaking Clontarf's 100pc record was on the cards.

But Luke Hayden and then Dan Treacy - continuing his goal a game run since joining Clontarf - stamped out such a possibility before Abbott and Ledwidge added to their day's tally.

Suttonians 0 Avoca 4 (Peter Haughton 2, Will Aylmer, M Naughton)
Avoca's outside promotion hopes were ended by Bray's result making their impressive victory in Sutton purely academic. They dominated for long periods and were rewarded with four smartly taken goals. Reflecting on their season, the Blackrock side may look at dropped points against Naas as a pivotal moment as upcoming fixtures could have worked out in their favour.

Navan 3 (Rory Clarke, Eamon Lynskey, Simon Clarke) Naas 2 (Charlie Hill, Luke Connolly)
Navan edged their battle with eighth place as they held Naas at bay to record their third win of the season. They opened the scoring after 20 minutes when Rory Clarke netted after some good work in midfield by Shane Dooley.
Naas were unlucky not to level when they had an equaliser disallowed, the would-be goalscorer deemed to be within five yards of a quickly taken free on the edge of the circle.
Navan were in no mood to develop a guilt-complex and duly doubled their lead in 15 mins into the second half when Simon Clarke squared for Eamon Lynskey to score into an empty goal.
Naas hit back with a well taken Charlie Hill goal but Lynskey returned the favour for Clarke to ease home for the Badgers to take a 3 - 1 lead into the closing ten minutes. Luke Connolly scored from the spot for Naas to ensure a nervy ending but could not rescue a point.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice work form the Bray lads. Will be a good chance to take out the play off match and get back into the Div 1. Im tipping a few more Aussies might join if they make it!

Anonymous said...

another hattrick for Rob Abbott..does anyone know how many goals he has scored this year!?

Stephen Findlater said...

Will try and produce the full list of scorers by midweek for div1,2 and women's div1.

Unknown said...

Im sure abbo wouldnt be long telling you how many he has got, must be close to 30 in all comps!

Tom said...

I think Abbo is on 33 competitive goals......mostly from set pieces though

Anonymous said...

it says bray shot an instant return to division 1 do they not have to play a playoff .. how does it work ?

Anonymous said...

well they have shot at divison one in that they have one game to decide whether they go up or stay in division two.

Anonymous said...

is that against ucd then or a team in division 2

Anonymous said...

it's against UCD/Kilkenny

Anonymous said...

I doubt that the playoff will go ahead as their are rumours that Kilkenny Hockey Club Firts team will be disbanding. Division 2 will be a disaster next year. Naas have already announced that they will not be competing in the Division next year, and Kilkenny are rumoured to be disbanding. THat leaves a 10 team division 1 and a 7 team division 2. Division 2must take teams from division 3. Some of the seconds teams are better that the firsts teams of Division 2.

Anonymous said...

no, promoting division 3 teams to division 2 is not the answer, moving up senior teams from div 4 and lower to fill the division. division 3 teams in division 2 would not benefit it in any way, as they cant get promoted, they would just prove to be an obstacle to those looking to get promoted to division 1.

Anonymous said...

Some tough calls have to be made by the branch in the off season, I think that the likes of Mullingar, St Brendans, Naas, SE Wanderers should be Made play in div 2, Possibly pushing extra teams up to div 1 and make two 11 or 12 team divisions!

Anonymous said...

Are the Junior Interpros on this year?Havent heard anything about trials yet,Anyone hear anything?

Anonymous said...

Junior Interpro trials are on this week. Contact John Dooley as hes co-ordinating it and looking for players.

Anonymous said...

Allowing Div 3 teams to compete in Div 2 will improve the league by bringing the standard up. If you can't beat a 2nds side how do you propose to compete against their 1sts in Div 1.

Although the last thing we want is Div 2 full of 2nds XI sides.

Branch have alot of thinking to do this off-season.

Anonymous said...

surprised the idea of an eight-team league doesn't get more airtime.

basically, the bottom two for the past number of years have been well off the pace and easy pickings. with the IHL as an additional rather than replacement competition for the domestic league it means big clubs have even more games than ever before.

they want to protect their players for bigger games and so end up putting out reduced teams against the likes of UCD and KK which doesn't do either side a huge amount of favours from a quality perspective.

an extra two high-end div2 sides would make that league more comptitive. a number of players from div2 have also lamented the amount of vacant weeks they have too so could benefit from this.

Anonymous said...

the argument that div 3 teams should play in Div 2 is now getting old. it is rediculous.

Yes everyone knows that Pembroke 2nds are probably better than all the current Div 2 teams but thats beside the point.

2nd teams play together at reach the highest point in div 3, thats where it should stay.

Imagine for a second that Pembroke 2s, Rovers 2s etc had been playing Div 2 this year. Imagine then that They won the league and could not get promoted.

That leaves 2 scenarios- promote a team who can get promoted but finished below them or leave the teams that finished bottom in Div 1. Joke of a scenario

The argument is stupid. It also does nothing to help promote the devlopment of new clubs or indeed clubs that are going through a rebuilidng phase

Anonymous said...

Having 2nd teams in the same division as 1st teams causes more problems than it solves. All you need do is look at the state of men's hockey in Munster. It may be a short term fix but the long term consequences can be very bad.

Anonymous said...

so what teams would you propose introducing into division 2, mens senior teams i mean, not seconds teams.

Anonymous said...

When you take a look at the womens div2 which mixes 1st and 2nd teams it looks like the way to go.

Bray and Glennane got promoted last year and this year Corinthians who got 4 points all season will play agianst the highest place 1sts team (4th place - Genesis).

The only way you should get into Div1 is if you can consistently beat the top teams 2nd teams. If you can't how on earth do you expect to be able to competitive with their 2nd teams.

Also, its a no brainer that Div1 needs to follow Ulster and be reduced to 8 teams.

Anonymous said...

I can't see any seconds side beating Clontarf in a competitive match...

Anonymous said...

i think div 1 needs to follow uslter and go to 8 teams, that way it would make it a tougher league and cup down the number of games the top players play.
Div 2 should then become a 12 team league..Promote Mullingar/Brendans/Portrane.
1 up and 1 down at the end of every year..no play off

Anonymous said...

TBH I dont think it would be feasable for MOST clubs in Div 3 to play in Div 2 for a few reasons.

On average three to four players on most Div 1 squads double up for their 1st and 2nd team games. This allows these players to get proper game time and also develope as a player. Also most Div 1 games are immediately followed by a Div 3 game which facilitates this doubling up and allows the Div3 team to put out their strongest available selection. This is a factor in why the standard is so high in Div 3.

Having your Div 1 and Div 3 teams play in seperate locations would naturally reduce the strength of the Div 3 team. Plus this effect will then filter on down through the clubs teams i.e. Div 3 player who doubles up for their Div 4 team also.

I know from organising matches that the knock on effect of reduced availabilty of players in smaller clubs is a real pain in the ass for lower teams fielding a full team.

In conclusion, I think that Div 3 should stay the way it is, at the highest possible level second only to their 1st teams. Moving up to Div 2 would just reduce the quality of most Div 3 teams and also logistically prove to be an added headache for most clubs. Also what do you do when the 2nd team wins the Div 2 league?!

It would be a nice change to play other clubs, but Div3 is where the major share of quality hockey is played outside of Div 1.

Anonymous said...

April 9, 2009 3:18 PM,

I think if you watch some Division 2 hockey you might change your mind about the quality hockey being played in Div 3.

Half the players in Div 3 turn up hungover every saturday and for them the match is only secondary to their social life. The majority of div 2 clubs commit 100% to the team and their matches.

You shouldnt judge without seeing!

Clontarf, Bray, Skerries, Avoca, Trinity, Suttonians all play a high level of hockey and Div 3 teams would struggle with the quicker tempo.

I would love to see a Div 2/ Div 3 cup! Although we all know from previous comments on this site that cup matches dont count as a judgement of a sides quality.....

Anonymous said...

You shouldnt judge without seeing!

I've seen Div2 matches this year and the standard is appalling.

To Clontarfs credit they can only beat and beat comfortably who they are put up against. Apart from Tarf both the technical and tactical levels shown by the other teams is very poor.

Yes there are some handy individuals(ie. Brian McMahon, R Wormwald and maybe not even a handful of others) but standard of play is far superior in Div3.

"Also what do you do when the 2nd team wins the Div 2 league"

Answer: Check out the womens which seems to work well. The highest placed senior team from Div2 gets to play off with bottom Div1 team. If they win the league they go straight up.

Given that Bray and Glenanne got promoted last year by virtue of coming ahead of all of the 2nds teams and since comfortably stayed up this year it seems a good system.

It also does not seem to overly affect top teams 2nds, 3rds, 4ths etc.

Anonymous said...

Having seen the odd match and knowing a few players I can only say I don't agree with your last post at all and I guess we will never know unless the two divisions are pitted together, so let's agree to dissagree.

Anonymous said...

is the women's system really that great though? it is not a true level as all the second teams can pull players down from their firsts whereas Genesis, Our Lady's etc can only use what they have available.

theefore when it comes to the end of season and if a second eleven is in the mix they can organie their matches to be able to pull as manyas possible. look at the current situation of Railway with games still to play three weeks after the league was due to end. sure it was down to their IJC run but they can legally use this to their advantage.

notice genesis and trl were in the mix until all the refixes came into play, both unbeaten and suddenly they can't buy a win against the sides around them.

It makes it near impossible for a clear promotion. last year was an anomaly but in previous years trinity stayed up with barely a point to their name