The boy’s schools hockey competitions get underway next week with the curtain-raiser for the 2009/10 season coming in the form of the All-Ireland Schools qualifier.
Wesley, St Andrews and Kilkenny have already pre-qualified for the tournament by virtue of last year’s league results with Leinster, leaving two places up for grabs in the main event to be won.
A tournament, to be played in Grange Road on September 16, will consist of four teams playing off in a series 30 minute matches to establish the top two.
With the increased competitiveness of the likes of High School, Mount Temple and Dundalk, along with the re-emergence of St Columba’s, this looks set to be a hotly contested competition.
A new cup, meanwhile, will be initiated this year for senior boys with the two finalists progressing to the semi finals of the main senior cup to meet the two top seeds from last year – Wesley and St Andrews – giving schools outside the top two a fair chance of silverware.
Kilkenny would be considered favourites for the tournament. The full league structure for 2009/10 will be released in the coming week.
Donabate Community School, meanwhile, will be a new addition to the Leinster schools map as they will take part in the development leagues.
A massive amount of groundwork has gone in from the likes of Adrian Henchey, among others, with a new water-based pitch being built in the area, too, to hopefully aid the advancement of hockey in the area.
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10 comments:
When are you going to do your season preview Stephen? Hotly anticipated...
The previews will be out in the week before the Leinster senior league div 1 and 2 (men only) get underway.
For the women's and men's division one, this means the week prior to Sept 26.
The Neville Cup gets underway this weekend and will be previewed on Thursday.
Anyone think it would be a good idea to set up a 6/7 aside indoor or outdoor league for secondary schools that are new to hockey or haven't played hockey in a long time?
It must be difficult for new schools to get the number of players required and something is better than nothing.
To the best of my knowledge, Sandford run a couple of 7-a-side tournament's on their half-pitch astro from time to time while Donabate introduced the game initially with indoor hockey. Could definitely be an avenue for kids to enter the sport.
Wesley are definetly going to win the All Irelands this year..Seriously strong team!
wonder who left that comment (1.10), bit of complacency in wesley side
it's between wesley and banbridge this year, both have great teams
any chance of getting som details of the schoolboys leagues in Leinster, including the development leagues? These rarely appear on the Net
oooh yeah kilkenny rule
Although both Wesley and Bann are strong sides i wouldn't forget either Wallace or Bandon...
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