Men’s Hockey side defeated in historic debut
Instonians 3UCC 0UCC made the long trip up north on Saturday to play Instonians in the club’s first ever Irish Hockey League clash. The team went down to an experienced Instonians side that have played at this level for a longer time and this showed in the 3-0 score line.
“We’d two forwards missing this week due to injury and we’d hope to have them back next week."
However UCC will benefit from this experience and this should help them next Saturday when they entertain Glenane at the Mardyke.Instonians were two up at the break. Their first score came from a short corner in the 24th minute, with William Robinson converting. The Belfast side doubled their advantage on the stroke of half time when a loose ball across the circle was picked up by Instonians, who capitalised on a drop in concentration by UCC; Robert Cummins tapping it into the goal.The second half saw the college side step up their performance as they went about clawing back the deficit. They had three good chances to score with Fionn O’Leary, twice, and Gary Wilkinson proving unable to find the back of the Instonians net.Instonians got their third goal as Robinson doubled his tally with a drag-flick from a penalty corner to put the result beyond the brave effort of a young visiting team.UCC will be hoping to improve results over the coming fortnight when they will be playing Glenane and Annadale on home turf.Coach Les Ruddock said in the aftermath of the game that he hopes for his side to improve in the coming games.“We’d two forwards missing this week due to injury and we’d hope to have them back next week. Andrew Power and John Sweetnam should be back next week and they’ll add to our strength in depth for the visit of Glenane give us some much needed firepower up front.”UCC: Brian Corcoran, Adam O’Callaghan, Wesley Bateman, Jack Sherry, John Catchpoole, Stuart O’Grady, Peter Cathchpoole, David O’Doherty, Stuart Miller, Fionn O’Leary, Gary Wilkinson.Subs: Kevin Burn, Ben O’Mahony, Andrew McGregor, Malcolm Chromes, Daniel Moore.