Glenanne become early pacesetters

Men's Hockey/ Weekend round-up : If it was not obvious over the first couple of weeks of the Leinster Senior League as to which…

Men's Hockey/ Weekend round-up: If it was not obvious over the first couple of weeks of the Leinster Senior League as to which team was going to set the early pace, then it certainly is now as Glenanne swept to their fourth win on the trot and lead the table by six points.

Their tally of 12 points and 17 goals from four matches makes the St Marks-based side the early form club. This time they scored five goals against Trinity's three.

The students are an attractive scoring team but they tend to leak goals far too easily. This week they scored three against Glenanne but conceded five. Last week they knocked in four against Avoca and still walked away with just a share of the points.

Glenanne's goals were spread around with international striker Graham Shaw notching up his first of the domestic season and Trinity's Peter Blackeney, as ever, on the scoresheet, this week with two goals.

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Despite Trinity being destined to operate in the lower half of the league, Blackeney may well figure as one of the top scorers when the championship finishes.

Pembroke, who are chasing Glenanne from second place, are not about to get ruffled just yet about the Tallaght side's pacesetting and were thankful for a late rally in the closing five minutes to beat Monkstown 3-1 in Rathdown.

Alan Sothern, Alan Giles and Simon Kershaw each got a goal for Pembroke to keep them just one point ahead of a three-team group: Three Rock Rovers, YMCA and Railway Union.

Railway went down 4-1 to Rovers at Grange Road but the home side suffered a serious injury during the match when Graham Daly collided with Railway's Paul O'Brien and broke a leg.

Daly had already scored twice for Rovers in the match before the unfortunate accident occurred.

At Claremont Road, YMCA earned their second win of the season with a 2-1 win over Avoca.

LEINSTER SENIOR LEAGUE: Division One - Trinity 3 (P Blackeney 2, H Cashel), Glenanne 5 (G Shaw, B Parsons, Gary Shaw, M Lambe, J Brennan); Fingal 2 (P O'Loughlin, T Parsons), Corinthians 2 (C Pelow, A Missen); Three Rock Rovers 4 (G Daly 2, M Darling, S Tilson), Railway Union 1 (R Holden); Monkstown 1 (A Lewis), Pembroke 3 (A Sothern, A Giles, S Kershaw); YMCA 2 (N Lyons 2), Avoca 1 (C Stewart).

Johnny Watterson

Johnny Watterson

Johnny Watterson is a sports writer with The Irish Times