Harlequins Mens Hockey Match Report

Harlequins (A) 6 - Bandon (A) 0

Munster Division 1

Saturday 12th October 2002

Scorers: P. O'Driscoll, B. Hayes-Curtin, P. Lombard, D. Lombard, E. Gash, D. Eakins

Yet again the weather was nice; there must be something wrong. Quins team was GK Skint; LB B, CB's Porn, Fishy, RB P O'D; LM Morty, CM Johnta, RM Plums; RW Beaver, CF Locky, LW Edward Gash; Subs Séany, Gentleman Ducks.

Bandon team has current Munster senior goalkeeper in nets, Ian Hosford. The Bandon side also contained 2 current Irish underage players Adam Pritchard, and Colin Crowley. On the rest of the panel at least 8 have played representive hockey at some level. Despite this they decided before the start that they couldn't win.

Last years report of the league fixture (http://www.corkharlequins.com/Reports/0102/Rep_M1241101.asp) could equally be used for this match. Bandon again strove for damage limitation. Bandon, who finished 3rd 2 seasons ago, had 1 shot. With 11 players begind the ball and 5 players in midfield, they maintained their defensive tactics right up to the very end and lost 6-0.

Quins left and right back had nobody to mark, this allowed them to get forward with ease. The first goal came from Philip O'Driscoll - right back - and the second goal came from Brian Hayes-Curtain the left back. Another goal from a Paul Lombard stroke, after his brother was assaulted in the circle, left the half time score 3-0.

You might have expected Bandon to have a go second half; they didn't and with Quins maintaining their good ball pace, the second half progressed in the same way as the first. The major talking points were the 3 sendings off - 2 Quins and 1 Bandon. A few strange decisions from the umpires early on may have contributed to the errosion of disipline towards the end of the game. The second half goals came from David Lombard shot, Edward Gash touch and an David Eakins rocket.

At the end of the day, all credit to Quins, as I said before, it was a good performance before the big game against the 'blues' in 2 weeks.