Five-star C of I rout Pembroke

Cork Church of Ireland belied their underdog status to outclass Pembroke Wanderers 5-1 in a ruthless Irish Junior Cup final performance at Belfield this afternoon. C of I played the smarter hockey in a bizarre game that yielded 21 corners, adding Pembroke to a impressive list of scalps that saw them take out Annadale, Cork Harlequins, Glenanne and Cookstown en route to their first win in this competition since 1993. Dermot Judge’s side continued their habit of underwhelming on local soil – toiling to a 4-3 Charity Cup win over Quins in midweek – before saving their best performances for the national stage. They ruined Pembroke’s hopes of a cup double, and gained a modicum of revenge for their firsts’ Irish Senior Cup defeat to the Dubliners earlier this term. The Munster Junior Cup winners had heroes in Andrew Gray – who bagged a hat-trick – and goalkeeper Billy Lynch, who ensured that just one of Pembroke’s 12 corners yielded a goal and produced one particularly memorable stop when he plucked Mick O’Connor’s drag-flick out of thin air when it seemed destined for the top corner. Gray was deservedly named the official man-of-the-match, but he will have known how vital his netminder – plus the experience of Mark Holmes and Trevor Dunne, and the youthful exuberance of Nick Burns – was to C of I’s cause. They got off to a whirlwind start, finding themselves 2-0 up inside five minutes as the game took on a similar look to the wins over Glenanne and Cookstown. First, skipper Holmes deflected home a cross from Dunne – who won this competition during a seven-year spell with Pembroke before returning to his native city, and admitted it wasn’t easy facing his former club.

Andrew Gray had the ball in the net 60 seconds later, batting in a corner rebound, but it was chalked off as the whistle had blown early. It mattered little as Dunne rattled home an improvised corner via a defender’s stick on five minutes. Pembroke went on the offensive for the remainder of the half, forcing seven consecutive corners – a consistent feature of a game where any circle penetrations seemed to result in set-pieces. Burns did well to charge down one of those while Derek Hales –  a winner as a teenager in 1993 alongside team-mate Richie Dorman – took another off the line, but their line was finally breached on 19 minutes, when Maurice Elliot flicked a rebound over a grounded Lynch, who had saved O’Connor’s low drag. But Gray restored C of I’s two-goal advantage two minutes before half-time, roofing a drag-flick after he’d won the first in a series of three corners. The second half was a more a low-key affair, with O’Connor’s ten-minute tenure in the sin-bin for taking a cut off Andrew Scannell a rare incident of note. That was until Burns picked up a poor ball from Michael Tijs on halfway and put Stephen Parker through on Simon Thornton on 57 minutes. He rounded the Pembroke netminder but was brought down in the process, and Gray made no mistake from the flick spot for 4-1. Gray completed his hat-trick barely 60 seconds later, zinging home a straight hit after a corner was switched right. But the celebrations couldn’t start yet as Pembroke forced another five corners; however, their out-of-sync routine, alongside Burns’ speed off the line, kept C of I’s goal intact until the final whistle.

Meanwhile, Hermes took the women’s Irish Junior Cup on penalty strokes after their final clash with Railway went the distance. Irish underage soccer international Deirdre Duke gave Hermes – conquerors of Quins in the last eight – a 55th-minute lead, only for Louise O’Dwyer to level for Railway from a corner after the final hooter. But the Booterstown side had the measure of Railway in the shootout, winning 3-1 to deny the Park Avenue outfit their second trophy in a week, after they had earlier claimed Leinster’s Division Two title. Thanks to Stephen Findlater and Sarah Gray for info. Adrian Boehm’s full set of pictures from the C of I game can be viewed here.