Pembroke prevail as Quins concede ‘easy’ goals

A COLLECTIVE inability to raise themselves for the big occasion cost Cork Harlequins any chance they had of winning this Irish Junior Cup Final at the National Hockey Arena on Saturday.

Three first half goals – two of which were described by the Quins coach Alan O’Driscoll as “easy” – sealed the Cork team’s fate and left the club trophy-less on the national stage after a year which promised much but in the end delivered nothing.

As Quins head this week to the European club championships in Prague, they’ll reflect on the many opportunities – for both its men’s and women’s sides – to seal at least one of the four main cups on offer. The national club championships later this month are now the only chance of atonement.

In this case there was the very definite sense among the Harlequins faithful that they left this Junior Cup behind them through a combination of defensive naivete and a sometimes shambolic offence.

Prior to the game their defensive nous and their ability to attack set plays were deemed to be their main strengths, but on the day they were strong in neither department.

Their ability to score was never in doubt, even after they had gone three goals down. However for all their huff and puff, all they managed was a consolation.

When they went a goal down after five minutes — as a result of an unstoppable Ken Twomey finish to a short corner routine — the writing was on the wall for Quins.

In fact this was the start of a nightmare 15 for the Cork outfit as they were harassed and bullied by a very confident Dublin outfit.

“We only really came into the game in the last twenty minutes of the first period,” O’Driscoll conceded. “We let them come at us early on and we gave them two very easy goals in that period.”

The trouble was that not only did they concede two easy goals, but they gave away another as well and, in truth, they never recovered.

The second goal came just two minutes after the first and again it was a short corner move which Byron Dunne finished with some aplomb.

This shocked Quins into some semblance of activity and around the 20 minute mark they forced a series of soft short corners, one of which was magnificently saved by Pembroke ‘keeper Steve Doran from Rob Hobbs and while Dan Hobbs eventually scored from the second, it was disallowed for a stick offence.

But they went three down just after this when a crisp Chris Wilson shot from inside the circle flew high into the Quins net with Chris Daunt helpless to do anything about it.

The irony of this was that by now Harlequins were enjoying most of the play but had nothing to show for it and while their pressure was to see them claim a goal back just before the half-time hooter after Dan Hobbs made no mistake from a penalty stroke, they needed to make more of the possession they were enjoying.

“We had four or five short corners in the second half,” O’Driscoll allowed later, “but we were unable to convert any of them and that cost us dear. I could give out about some of the umpiring decisions, but the bottom line was that we didn’t do enough to win and only have ourselves to blame,” he added. His analysis was not incorrect. Some of the Harlequins set pieces descended to farce and while there was the feeling that if they got a second, they would at least force extra time, it never arrived.

PEMBROKE WDRS: S Doran, M. Elliot, R. Flannery, S. Smith, C. Wilson, K. Twomey, D. Good (Capt.), B. Dunne, R. Pearson, D. McKeen, P. Good.

Rolling subs: S. Furlong, C. Kelly, S. Stewart, T. Hill.

CORK HARLEQUINS: C. Daunt (Capt.), M. Dawson, D. Hobbs, R. Hobbs, P. O’Driscoll, D. Mills, L. d’Alton, K. Deasy, D. Heappey, E. Gash, M. Lombard. Rolling.

Subs: S. Teap, P. Byrnes, T. O’Callaghan, D. Gash, S. White.