Hermes may find favourites tag a heavy burden to bear

Spare a thought for Maeve Hyland, president of the Munster Branch of the Irish Ladies Hockey Union. Tomorrow she will be at Belfield to cheer on Harlequins as they attempt to win the first Irish Senior Cup for the province since Cork Hockey Club's victory in 1934. If they succeed she will no doubt offer words of consolation to Hermes, whose line-up will include her daughter Johanna Hyland.

Divided loyalties, then, for her mother but for the young midfielder there will be no room for sentiment as she and her teammates aim to add the Sharwood's Irish Senior Cup to the European bronze medals they won in Cologne at Easter, completing a superb season for the club.

Hyland, her former UCC teammate Fiona Connery, a Kilkenny camogie star in her spare time, and Hilda Barron are the only three members of the Hermes squad not to have experience of Irish cup final day, while only one Harlequins player, Ciara McGrath, has seen it all before.

McGrath was on the Muckross team that lost to Hermes in the 1997 final, the Dublin club's first success in the competition.

They won again last year, beating Pegasus in an epic final, and are favourites to retain the cup tomorrow against the Munster champions who, until this year, never progressed further than the semi-finals. Indeed, the last Munster club to reach the final was Catholic Institute when they lost 3-1 to Pegasus in 1984.

Underdogs they may be but Harlequins boast a talented squad that includes two current and two recent Irish internationals - Rachael Kohler, Karen O'Brien, Sharon Hutchinson and Aoife Falvey - and the Chapple sisters, Jane and Hillary, who were both in this season's Munster squad.

With a place in next season's European Cup Winners' Cup the prize for the winners no added incentive will be needed but the Hermes players will be keen to give Helen Kilroy and Roly Burke a send-off to remember - both players retire from first-team hockey after the game, with Burke threatening to hang her old boots in O'Shea's pub in Clonskeagh, Hermes' HQ.

When they won the Irish Cup in 1997 one of the first and warmest congratulation messages Hermes received was from Harlequins. The Cork club will hope there is cause for the favour to be returned tomorrow afternoon, before taking the Kate Russell Cup down south for a breath of Lee-side air. The odds are against them but, as Hermes proved in 1997, the favourites tag can be a heavy burden to bear.

HARLEQUINS: S Hutchinson, J Kehelly, A Falvey, C McGrath, V Fenton, K O'Brien, R Kohler (capt), K Barry, K O'Sullivan, C Welch, J Chapple, J Logue, H Costello, H Chapple, G Kehelly, M Boland. Coach: A O'Driscoll. Man- ager: T Lane.

HERMES: T Browne, S Hilliard, D Sixsmith, S McDonnell, C Carey, A Byrne, R Burke, C Devine, F Connery, J Burke, A Keane (capt), H Kilroy, J Hyland, M Logue, H Barron, D McDermott. Coach: E Gierts. Manager: J Morgan.