Saturday, December 5, 2009

Railway nudge away from Bulls with YM draw: Leinster men's round-up

Leinster Men's Division One:
Railway Union 1 (Paul O'Brien) YMCA 1 (Jacob Webber)
Railway moved four points clear of Clontarf with a competitive 1-1 draw at Park Avenue today against Sandymount neighbours YMCA to put a useful buffer between themselves and the relegation place. YM edged the first half in possession and territory terms and took the lead through Jacob Webber. He tapped in from three yards but all the credit went Will Powderly's way as he intercepted an overhead 60-metres out, rushed at the Railway defence, drew Stephen O'Keeffe and laid on for the Australian to hit the open net.

Railway equalised in similar circumsatnces, again intercepting on halfway. Paul O'Brien won it, fed the overlapping Ravin Nair who found Mark English and a slightly fortuitous touch eliminated two players before he slipped to O'Brien lurking, indoor style, on the back post to tap in; 1-1 at half-time.

The hosts, though, stepped it up in the second half and while YM played the more intricate hockey in midfield, Kenny Carroll and Peter English were defensive rocks and set multiple attacks in motion with their long passing both on the ground and through the skies.

Feeding off mistakes, they created much the better chances in the second half but Iain Walker produced some good saves to keep their point intact.

Leinster Men's Division Two
Dublin University 3 (Chris Tyrell, Andrew Beverland, Hal Sutherland) Suttonians 5 (Conor Gillett 2, Richie Wormold, Mark Guerin, Simon Walsh)
Suttonians came from behind twice to record their fifth win from six games in division two as they continue to impress under Frank Byrne. Trinity had led 2-0 at the break with Sean Flynn in excellent form in midfield but a lively second half saw Suttonians draw level only for the students to move into a 3-2 lead with a quarter-hour left to play. But, with Daire Coady and Henry Butler serving time for bad stick-tackles, the northsiders struck late with Conor Gillett and Simon Walsh striking late to steal all three points.

Avoca 8 (Stephen Brownlow 6, Enda Gallanagh, Rob Pearson) Navan 2 (Shane Dooley, Simon Clarke)
Stephen Brownlow super six was too much for Navan as the league's top scorer added another half-dozen to his season's tally at Newpark this afternoon. Shane Dooley had given the Badgers an early lead with a straight corner strike but Brownlow inspired Avoca to turn the tables and lead 7-1 before Simon Clarke scored a stroke for a late consolation. Brownlow's lot included two strokes, a couple of corner drag-flicks and a pair from play for a comprehensive win.


Men’s Irish Hockey Trophy
Antrim 3 Weston 2 on golden goal extra time; NICS 11 (M Gilmer 3, R Anderson 2, G Grundie 2, P Johnston, P Towe, C Irwin, A Gill) Cliftonville 0

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

go on POB! the king of the boards strikes again!legendary goalscorer, i heard pembroke are making a bid for him for next season.

Anonymous said...

It's said to be in the region of 45 million plus appearances

Anonymous said...

Suttonians get lucky again!! Won't be too long before their luck runs out! Avoca to win div 2!

Anonymous said...

Suttonians get lucky again!! Won't be too long before their luck runs out! Avoca to win div 2!

Anonymous said...

he'd make that back for them jersey sales alone!

Anonymous said...

well in sutts.Another win under the belt, and pillow scoring for trinity against his former team!

As for the shout that Avoca will win the 2nd division, how quickly you forget the spanking you got the last time you were in div 1.

If suttonians go up you can be sure of a return of some big names who left to play div 1.All sutton park boys came through there before moving on to try and make a name for themselves.With fingal and clontarf not looking to strong this season there's scope for a big surge of summer signings...

Anonymous said...

Brownlow the hero strikes again. Avoca Top Gun to win European golden boot! You can be my wing man any Time!!!!

Anonymous said...

GO ON BROWNLOW!!!

Anonymous said...

hilarious how sutton are 4 points clear from being lucky! did the 3-1 win in Avoca mean nothing?? at times today we rode our luck but 8 corners to 1 shows extreme dominance! get over it...Trinity lost and very much deservedly so. Sutton yet to hit top form and still top of the league

Anonymous said...

worst Ym performance in years....railway deserved three points...8 corners versus 1 for railway and only two payers to play well for Ym were the GK and Powderly....

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't read too much into Avoca's thrashing of Navan, by all accounts Navan were just really bad, pity really, had been playing quite well this season. I reckon Sutton will win the league, to say they've been just that lucky to win 5 outta 6 is ridiculous, they must be expecting a EuroMillions win soon so??

(S.Quinn-Navan)

Anonymous said...

Just out of curiosity, how did Navan draw with Sutts? Because sutts are a better team than avoca

Anonymous said...

what suttonians players would move back? only one i could think of is Maguinnes from glenanne. he would be a good addition

Anonymous said...

To be fair,the gulf between Div 1 and 2 is too much for any team to make at the moment, look at Tarf, the wiped the floor with all of us last year and even with afew new players this year they are still way off the pace in Div 1!We will need to be careful saying how well we could do in Div 1 as we may start to sound like Div 3 players who cant accept that div 3 is as good as its gonna get for them!!!Div 2 is a great level of hockey to play and i for one am in no hurry to get beaten 10 - 0 by pembroke twice a year!!! -Div 2 Player

Anonymous said...

div 3 players are made of of 1st team, old 1st team players (who played DIV 1 for years) and up and coming 1st team players....

9:56 been there, done that, worn the tshirt for years playing Div one...

You would be lucky to get close to Div 1 playing all your life in Div 2 and only getting a sniff when fate decides..

Get your facts right before you start dissing players in Div 3 who probably have played in more senior and major league games than you are your team ever will....

Ha ha.

Anonymous said...

Other players to leave Suttonians include Andrew Quinn, Steve Doran, Mick McGuinness, Rob Byrnes, Keith Crawford, Ian Gorman, Jamie Taylor and Brian Scully (i think all have div 1 experience and there is possibly a few more??). I'm not saying they'd all come back, but they all learned their trade in Sutton so they'd be far more likely to join us than they would any other team to get promoted. However that said no one in the club is getting carried away as we know that we have 9 very tough games to come. We do believe we have a good chance of going up, but I'm sure Weston and Avoca feel the same way. We've had a better start though and we hope to keep building on that.

Anonymous said...

this is a very poor result for YM. Have the Australian's that they brought in done nothing to strengthen the team. IHL spot?

Spencerontheedge said...

Navan played a great opening game against Sutton at the start of the season and very poorly against Avoca last Saturday. the difference was the badgers organisation/structure on the pitch which has suffered in recent weeks. They fought hard to earn the point against Sutts but collapsed when Avoca blitzed their circle. Shows the competitiveness of the league though, the Badgers are almost there, just need to be more clinical in front of goal and more organised in defence. I think.

Spencerontheedge said...

Navan played a great opening game against Sutton at the start of the season and very poorly against Avoca last Saturday. the difference was the badgers organisation/structure on the pitch which has suffered in recent weeks. They fought hard to earn the point against Sutts but collapsed when Avoca blitzed their circle. Shows the competitiveness of the league though, the Badgers are almost there, just need to be more clinical in front of goal and more organised in defence. I think.

Anonymous said...

Suttonians drew with Navan did they not? Why does the branch website have them with 6 played and 6 won- 18 points?

Anonymous said...

it wouldnt be just down to returning players for sutts, as i said above, fingal are not looking good, and with no feeder school, where will there players come from. Their 1sts will tire of getting beaten in matches they used to win.

Would it not be on the cards for a merger between fingal and sutton? Some 1st div knowledge with the juniour background of sutts. with players coming through like the (very) young Ryan brothers,the o'reilly's,simon walsh, ferdia carty,killian flude and harry spain to name but a few...

Anonymous said...

because we were down to play Skerries the weekend we drew 3-3. The league was re-structured so as whoever was playing Skerries would play the spare team and this never registered on LB website!

Anonymous said...

although i see what you mean about it having us down as winning twice...happy days!

Anonymous said...

12.14am - no thanks.

Anonymous said...

To: December 8, 2009 12:14 AM

no thanks to a merger, most of the Sutton lads tried to cut it out at Fingal and didnt have the drive to progress further. What makes you think things would change?