Although Leinster's top three sides recovered on Saturday from recent blips to consolidate their passage to the All-Ireland Championship play-offs, the draw for the third round of the Irish Senior Cup was a trifle sobering.
Glenanne, the trophy holders, and the 2000 winners, Pembroke Wanderers, both face testing away assignments on January 19th against Ulster premier division sides NICS and Mossley, respectively, while Corinthians cannot under-estimate a neighbourly challenge from enigmatic YMCA on home ground.
Corinthians, though, played confidently on Saturday and neither Monkstown's deputy goalkeeper Cormac Kelly nor fellow defender David Johnston could be blamed for their side's comprehensive 4-1 defeat at Whitechurch Park as the visitors were outpressed by James Benson, Colin Stewart and Aaron Clausen.
Unbeaten leaders Glenanne, who meet Monkstown in the Neville Cup final on St Stephen's Day, turned on full power in the second period at St Mark's to beat Trinity 4-2 after Ross Cullen and Paul Tuttle had enabled the students to make it 2-2 at the halfway stage.
Pembroke were relatively untroubled by Avoca in a 3-0 win at Rathdown while in the mid-table 1-1 joust at Ballinteer, Michael Fry replied for YMCA after Niall Denham had swept Three Rock Rovers into the lead.
In Munster, Cork C of I and Harlequins refused to yield to each other at Garryduff in a robust but disappointing scoreless draw between the two elite teams who had previously registered more than 100 goals against the lesser lights in the province.
Wesley Bateman once again proved a valuable figure for Harlequins in foiling David Hobbs in one-on-one situations while Paul Lombard and David Lombard went closest at the other end, before Ken Twomey almost snatched the spoils for C of I.
Pembroke edged out the holders Three Rock Rovers 2-1 in a refreshing Leinster Under-21 Cup final at Serpentine Avenue yesterday. Simon Blake-Knox gave Pembroke an early lead and a smartly executed short-corner goal by Alan Giles made it 2-0 at the interval.
PEMBROKE WANDERERS: M Connellan; B Dunne; C Wilson, K Treacy, S Smyth; A Giles, R Gormley (capt), R Pearson; A Cooke, S Blake-Knox, M Elliott. Sub: A Alipour. Dnp: G Furlong, D McGuinness, A Cartwright, T Hughes. Inj: P Good.
THREE ROCK ROVERS: G Sutherland; A McConnell, J McConnell, B Mellon, C Sargent; P Mc Connell (capt), J Blakeney, C Huet; D Sinnamon, P Maguire, J Erwin. Subs: R Irvine, P Blakeney, O Graham, M Maguire, A McFarlane.
Umpires: J Dunne, J Girdham.
