Three and easy for Hobbs

The underdog didn’t have its day as a Dan Hobbs hat-trick scuppered Bandon’s hopes of pulling off a shock Munster Senior Cup final victory, helping Cork Harlequins to a 4-0 win at Garryduff earlier today. Hobbs had also made the breakthrough in Quins’ 1-0 Peard Cup win over the same opposition on St Stephen’s Day, and although his side hit four yesterday, that didn’t reflect Bandon’s continued improvement as they look to close the gap in standards on the big two. Unfortunately, the westies lacked the volume of possession or penetration required to cause an upset. Bandon keeper Ian Hosford had already pulled off neat saves from Eddie Dore and David Egner before Hobbs broke the deadlock with a pinpoint low drag-flick on nine minutes. Bandon skipper Mark Deane cleared another Hobbs bullet off the line soon after, and when the Ashton schoolboy rocketed another to the backboard on 20 minutes, it looked like curtains for Bandon, not to mention the neutrals who had hoped to see them put it up Quins. Indeed, the second half lacked much in the way of excitement, but to their credit, Bandon didn’t cave in and strung together a couple of neat pahses of their own. One length-of-the-field move involving Deane, Fionn O’Leary and Ricky Roycroft found Graham Kingston all alone in the circle, forcing a smart save from Quins netminder Chris Daunt on 37 minutes. Kingston was even unluckier a couple of minutes later. Andrew Kingston played him in after collecting a mis-hit Phil O’Driscoll hit-out, but the mercurial forward crashed his effort from the top of the circle just wide of the top corner. But chances were few and far between for Bandon, who certainly missed the pace of dislocated shoulder victim Ali Smith up front. With Mark Black orchestrating things for Quins as usual, Stephen Dale’s side hardly felt the loss of Sean Nicholson, who missed out with a back problem.

Egner should have done better after Lee d’Alton’s ball from the end-line had taken Hosford out of the equation, but he blasted high and wide with the goal at his mercy. But Paul Lombard forced home Black’s crash ball to put the result beyond doubt on 51 minutes, and Hobbs completed his hat-trick three minutes later to complete his day’s work. CORK HARLEQUINS: C Daunt (GK); L d’Alton, P O’Driscoll, D Hobbs, J Black; M Black, D Lombard, C Ross; P Lombard (capt), E Dore, D Egner. Rolling subs: P Murray, D Farrell, R Hobbs, S White (GK). BANDON: I Hosford (GK); M Deane (capt), N Martin (vice-capt), C Wood, C Sweetnam; A Kingston, D Beamish, D Smith; F O’Leary, G Kingston, D Sweetnam. Rolling subs: R Roycroft, S McIlroy, E Rice, R Smith, A Beamish. Umpires: B Attridge & S McAllister