Rare opportunity for Bandon and UCC to collect some silverware

While Cork Church of Ireland won’t know what to do with themselves with a St Stephen’s Day without hockey, for Bandon and UCC, Saturday’s Peard Cup final at Garryduff (2pm) presents a rare opportunity for silverware.

The Rochestown men no longer participate in this competition having moved out of Munster into the national EY Hockey League, and thus won’t be defending their title this year.

It ends a remarkable long-term dominance; as well as winning the last six finals in a row and 14 of the last 16, C of I have annexed the Peard Cup 40 out of the 57 times it has been contested.

They beat UCC and Bandon in the last two deciders but now Munster’s pretenders have the chance to take a crack at each other.

Both had relatively straightforward routes to the final; College saw off Limerick (5-0) and Galway (10-1) without any difficulty while Bandon beat Cork Harlequins (6-0) and C of I’s seconds (2-0) in one weekend to reach the decider.

The teams have played out a number of tightly-fought battles in recent seasons but have yet to meet this term, with Bandon a single point ahead of UCC at the summit of Division 1.

College had relatively little player turnover this summer and Neil Welch, in his seventh season, knows his charges inside out.

Peter Catchpole, Stuart O’Grady and Fionn O’Leary will be key figures as usual while former Leinster U18 captain Sam Grace has had a huge impact in his freshman season since joining from Kilkenny.

Denis Pritchard is only in his second year at Bandon but guided them to an Irish Hockey Trophy final last term — a feat they are on course to repeat — and they’ve yet to taste defeat this season.

Bandon have better strength in depth than they’ve had for years with the likes of teenagers Sean Nyhan, David Jennings, Calum Crowley and Matthew Lee all boasting underage Irish international experience — they’ll need it with their Ireland-capped talisman Ali Smith set to miss this encounter.