Lisnagarvey closing in on league title

Lisnagarvey moved into touching distance of the men's EY Hockey League regular season title and a European spot thanks to Matthew Nelson's late winner against Cork C of I.
By The Newsroom
Published 6th Mar 2016, 18:37 BST
Updated 7th Mar 2016, 14:41 BST
Glennane's Gary Shaw and Annadale's Matthew AllisterGlennane's Gary Shaw and Annadale's Matthew Allister
Glennane's Gary Shaw and Annadale's Matthew Allister

It snatched a 3-2 win which moves Garvey 11 points clear of the pack with five rounds of games to go.

They did it the hard way, though, trailing 1-0 to C of I at half-time due to John Jermyn’s early drag-flick.

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Sean Murray and Timmy Cockram swapped the lead in the third quarter but Philip Sweetnam tied up the game in the closing phases.

Garvey showed the mark of champions, however, as they snatched a late winner through Nelson to make it 11 league wins in a row.

Nelson was the saviour last week as well, scoring in the Irish Senior Cup semi-finals against Three Rock in the last two minutes to earn an ultimately successful penalty shoot-out chance.

Rovers, for their part, shared a draw with Monkstown for the second time this season.

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Guy Sarratt’s close range finish was countered by Daragh Walsh’s deflected effort for a 1-1 game of few chances with goalkeepers David Fitzgerald and Jamie Carr on top.

Railway Union returned to the top half of the table thanks to a 6-3 win over Cookstown.

Mark English scored a hat trick as the Sandymount side built a 3-0 lead only for the Co Tyrone side to bounce back to 3-2 early in the second half.

English, though, struck twice while James Dick was on the mark twice to record the victory.

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Annadale picked off a hugely important win over Glenanne with a superb defensive performance to run out 2-0 victors.

James Cox’s early penalty stroke opened the scoring before Matthew Crookshanks clinched the tie in the closing quarter.

The Glens piled on the pressure throughout but could find no way past Jonny Moore for Dale who move level with Cookstown, making for a fascinating battle to avoid the relegation places.

Stevie Dowds rescued a point for Banbridge against Pembroke as they drew 2-2 at Serpentine Avenue, cancelling out Alan Sothern’s pair of goals.

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Pembroke started brightly but Bann worked their way into the game and from a corner in the 10th minute, Dowds fired his side in front.

Sothern equalised in similar fashion in the second quarter and put Pembroke 2-1 ahead heading into the final quarter.

In the 55th minute, a further break by Sothern led to a corner but the drag flick was pulled wide. Bann substituted their goalkeeper and in the 58th minute and won a final corner. Dowds repeated the corner trick to equalise at 2-2.