Irish in fine fettle after stunning South Africa

Ireland’s Champions Challenge I campaign is up and running but not without some controversy as Belfield witnessed plenty of drama yesterday.

It’s the young guns that have been doing the business in terms of goals, with Chloe Watkins’ stinging reverse-stick strike proving decisive as Denis Pritchard’s girls stunned world number 10 South Africa 1-0 on Saturday.

A day later, Ireland then spent long periods and 10 fruitless penalty corners in search of an equaliser to Catriona Ralph’s opener against bogey side Scotland, with teenager Katie Mullan eventually finding a way through.

A dramatic closing few minutes saw Irish captain Alex Speers red-carded — adding to earlier green and yellows to give her the full set — and Scotland dubiously awarded their ninth corner on the hooter.

The girls in green weathered that storm but the tie ended with both coaches remonstrating with each other and the umpires until tempers cooled. Ireland take on the US tomorrow before the classification games begin on Thursday.

Domestically, Amy Roberts gave a virtuoso captain’s performance as her hat-trick helped get Cork C of I off the mark with a 3-1 win away to a dogged Limerick side.

Her second was the pick of the bunch, beating a couple of defenders before lobbing Limerick keeper Anne-Marie Byrne, while new signing Ali O’Regan also starred, setting up Roberts’ third.

Kate Harvey and Mary Claire Cummins reacted quickest to mop up two rebounds as Ashton saw off UL 2-0, while UCC spread the goals around as they routed Fermoy 4-0 in north Cork as skipper Áine Curran, Nicola Kerr, Amy Kate Trevor and Emily O’Leary found the target.

Bandon’s miserable start to the new campaign continued as they lost 8-0 at home to Cork Harlequins, for whom Yvonne O’Byrne scored her second successive hat-trick while the first own goal in Munster hockey was scored since the new ruling allowing them came into force for this season.

Meanwhile, there was a tale of two penalty strokes as Cork Harlequins moved top of the men’s Division One with a 3-0 victory at UCC.

David Eakins converted a contentiously-awarded first-half penalty for Quins, while College’s Andy Gray saw his stroke saved by Chris Daunt as the students sought a way back into the game at 2-0 down.

Things had been tight until Paul Lombard had capitalised on a defensive error before rounding Brian Corcoran for Quins’ second, and Eakins rifled home a late drag-flick to seal it.

Elsewhere, Simon Wolfe and Mark Holmes scored as C of I won the battle of the seconds — 2-0 away to Quins.