Australian proves worth

Her stay at Loreto might only be a brief one but Australian Bronwyn Donnelly will return home to Canberra in mid-February at least knowing that she helped the Leinster Senior A club move back in to contention for the league title. Yesterday she scored two goals in the club's 3-2 victory over Old Alexandra at Milltown.

The game was scheduled for Saturday but was postponed for a day because of a bereavement suffered by one of the Loreto players. The win leaves Loreto level on points with Alexandra but still five short of Hermes who registered their eighth successive win of the season on Saturday, beating Genesis 4-1 with Mary Logue scoring two of their goals.

At Belfield scores from Claire Stewart and Aoife Budd gave Trinity a 2-1 win over UCD while Muckross fell to bottom of the table after a 5-0 defeat by Pembroke Wanderers.

South African Terrilee Chelin marked her debut for Railway Union by scoring the only goal of their game against Glenanne. The 18-year-old, who only arrived in Dublin a week ago, will play for Railway until the end of the season, a boost for their hopes of avoiding relegation. In Ulster, only one Section One match survived the weather, with Pegasus beating Collegians 2-0. The result means Portadown must beat Omagh in their rescheduled match by 13 clear goals if they are to pip the Belfast side to the first of the season's two mini-leagues.

Harlequins' first team got the better of their seconds in the final of Munster's Jury's Cup yesterday, winning 3-1 with goals from Jean Logue, Karen O'Brien and Jane Chapple.

Meanwhile Leinster were convincing winners of the Under-16 Inter-provincial tournament at Mount Anville, winning all four of their games to beat Ulster to the title, but a missed penalty stroke against South East in the final match of the Under-18 tournament at Wesley College helped end Munster's hopes of retaining their title - they lost out on goal difference to Ulster.

The star of the Under-18 tournament was South East and Irish under-18 goalkeeper Louisa Healy who produced some magnificent displays, not least against Leinster who failed to beat her from any of their 32 short corners in a 0-0 draw.