Saturday, November 7, 2009

Stalemate keeps UCD and Tarf tied bottom


Leinster Division One
UCD 3 (John McInroy, Ronan Flannery, Ben Grogan) Clontarf 3 (Tom Noonan, Luke Hayden, Richie Forrest)
Richie Forrest's (pictured, right) first goal of the season stole a point for Clontarf at the death but, in truth, a draw does little for either side's aspirations of escaping the bottom tier of division one. UCD were left to rue a glut of missed chances in the second half as they dominated for long periods but the Bull's goal led a charmed life.

Early on, the students took the lead via John McInroy's deflection at corner time but strikes from Tom Noonan and Luke Hayden swapped the lead. The former Skerries man latched on to Forrest's superb 40-metre pass from right-back for the leveller before Hayden scrambled in from a tight angle for a 2-1 half-time lead. Ronan Flannery's slapped corner made it 2-2, after Rob Abbott was yellow-carded for breaking the line, and Ben Grogan's drag returned the lead to the Belfielders. But they failed to extend the advantage in spite of numerous opportunities and Forrest snuck in to score from a fluffed short corner.

* A post-match incident could be subject to an appeal/inquiry and so, in order to not jeopardise any potential case, no comments will be entertained on this matter.

Monkstown 1 (Andy Ewington) Fingal 0
Andy Ewington's corner goal was the high point of a surprisingly flat game at Rathdown as Monkstown got their defence in order to record a first clean-sheet of the league season. It came midway through the second half during the Town's best spell. Ewington worked a superb switch right and back into the centre for a close-range drag-flick. It made up for Gareth Watkins' stroke after Lloyd Pearson was struck on the body on the goal-line. But the star striker was unable to beat Nigel Grothier to leave it 0-0 at half-time. Dave Fitzgerald was belatedly brought into the action by David Bane on two occasions but, otherwise, was not overly employed.

YMCA 1 (Cliff Bailey) TRR 1 (Patrick Shanahan)
YM and Three Rock shared the points at Alexandra College this afternoon as Cliff Bailey's crisp strike made it three league draws in a row between these sides. Rovers enjoyed the best of the first half but saw stand-in goalkeeper Graeme Woods producing a string of top saves in a rare call-up to division one action in light of Iain Walker's international commitments. The one that got away fell to the impressive Patrick Shanahan who rebounded Sven Galjaardt's drag-flick. But YM started the second half in rude health and got the equaliser from a good right-wing move, finding Bailey on the circle's edge to find the bottom left of Stephen West's goal.

Men's Irish Hockey Trophy
Weston survived a whole host of sin-binnings and a red card to eventually beat Armagh 4-2 in the one Irish Hockey Trophy tie involving a Leinster side. Former Glenanne-man Enda Tucker scored twice while Phil Barron and Shane O'Hare were also on target in the win and they will now face Galway at home on November 21 in the last 16.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Monkstown would really be very lost without Watkins and Coley, The 2 seem to be somewhat carrying the team.As a spectator today i have never seen Steven make so many tackles or covering for others, whereas Gareth is the only real threat up top

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

aaah the old coley and watkins weekly comment is in really early this week I wonder who !!!

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed watching UCD-Clontarf. Attacking students against a very efficient Clontarf. 34 chances for UCD and 3 or 4 for Clontarf.

If you want to be succesful you need a good corner and a good goalie. That's what 'Tarf' will win the relegation battle in the end.

Anonymous said...

Would agree that for a neutral the UCD game was very entertaining, but 34 v 4 chances is a bit harsh. Clontarf had a few corners and some good chances. They were on the back foot though for most of the second half.

Also, I'm not too sure about the statement that Clontarf's corners will keep them up, they didn't seem great today. Spot on about having a top keeper though.

Anonymous said...

Yep, that's why UCD should have won it. But if you can't score...

Indeed, Clontarf has a fine goalie. And their corner can be dangerous as well. That's what you need to survive.

Anonymous said...

The first half of the Ucd-Clontarf match was very even..Ucd though had the better of the second half but couldnt capitalise on there chances created.
Clontarf have a very good keeper and some excellent players and play a quick paced game so no suprises there competiting in most games this season. Its gonna be close as to who wins out in the relegation battle,(more than half the season still left) def gonna be a 3 horse race between Ucd, Tarf and Railway..Although Railway could leave the students and tarf to battle it out themselves if they turn the students over next weekend.

robbie said...

well done weston, we pushed you hard for 70mins but you guys took your chances we didnt.... plus our pc def was shambolic- 3 goals!!and slack marking contributed to your other goal.
good luck v galway you should progress... more patience needed when defending tho as some of ur yellows were for shocking stick tackles, however we too should have been down to 10 at least once in 2nd half.
good luck for the rest of the season- if u get any other ulster sides get in touch- robbiemcminn@btinternet.com

Anonymous said...

Graeme woods, the dark horse. he had a great game

Anonymous said...

Raliway look by far the weaker team compared with UCD. I'd bet on UCD beating them without too much difficulty, the only thing railwy have in their favour is the know-how and the heads to beat the students. Clontarf really will regret losing to a poor railway side.

matthewowen said...

Well done Clontarf on geting the game to a draw, Clontarf have lots of great players. They will stay up, Good luck

Anonymous said...

good lad tuck

Anonymous said...

fair play mr armagh man.

Anonymous said...

It´s so easy to say UCD is playing very nice hockey. They do, but they don´t win anything with it. 1 single point so far.

It´s not always very smart. The blond guy up front dribbles outside the cirkel instead of inside, they play 1vs1 at the back and forget to mark players.

Sure, it has much more potential than Railway and I bet they will play much better than Railway, but I think Railway will win. Just because they know how to win and UCD doesn´t.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Why are people talking up Clontarf's corner record ahead of UCD's when all UCD's goals in their match were from corners?

Anonymous said...

UCD are going down. Clontarf will stay up. I mean who would want to go to Division 2 these days??

some other teams might drop down a division next season (from DIV 2) so they can be stronger in other divisions..

The quality of hockey in Div 3 is very strong this year....

I believe it was mentioned on a post some months ago that most of the Div 3 teams would give the Div 2 guys a good run out....

Div 3 is made up of mostly senior heads who played 1s for many years and up and coming juniors who are 1st/2nd team players.....

I'd love to see some kind of tournament where Div 2 take on Div 3...

Queso said...

Division 3 is a great league to play in simply because it is so competitive and practically every team in the league has the potential to beat every other team from week to week.

The successful sides are always the ones that can balance experienced ex-Division 1 players with up and coming Juniors... plus the composition of the teams seem to change from week to week!!

Anonymous said...

Queso..........best player in Div 3 although you've got to be getting on at this stage Mr Cheese......i'm guessing 38!! Rovers are looking strong this year in Div 3 too.....

Anonymous said...

and we will certainly test out your theory Cheesy when we play you this weekend at 1 or 3pm..

A mixture of old CHC DIV 1 players and our up and coming juniors against your old DIV 1 players and up and coming Juniors.

Should be a good match me thinks..

AP.

Queso said...

Yeah.. just missed out on selection for that Masters Team that went to Hong Kong.. Gutted!!!