Railway Union Hockey Club - Season review 2nds 2005-06

Season review 2nds 2005-06

What a year for the seconds!! Right from the beginning things went well for the team and at the end we were rewarded the top spot in Division 3 along with promotion to Division 2!

Captain	Mary Doorly
Coach	Helen Johnston
Manager	Fiona Mc Garry
League Placing	1^st in Division 3
Cup Runs	1^st round of Irish Junior Cup2^nd round of Division 3/4 Cup
Top Goal Scorer	Shona Doyle (9 goals)
Player of the Year	Shona Doyle

This was a good year for the seconds. At the beginning of the season the influx of new players into the club resulted in a much strengthened 2^nd team squad with a good mix of skill, experience and youth all thrown into the mix. Our first match was against Suttonians and some lovely passages of play ensured that we won 4-2, and were very hopefully of our prospects for the season. The next match was against much tougher opposition Skerries, and after going down 2-0 we managed to turn the tides to win the match 3-2. We then realised that the league was tougher than we had first thought, and that we would still have to grind out a lot of our results.

The next week we faced Pembroke in what proved to be one of our lowest points of the season. We drew the game 0-0 and also lost Claire Waddell due to injury until after Christmas. We managed to recover from that game quite well winning all but 1 of our league matches up until Christmas. We lost to UCD in a game where we had so many chances but only scored from one, while they had 2 chances and scored from both.

At the Christmas break the league was still quite open, with us ahead of UCD, but only just, and a few other teams also still in with a good chance. The second half of the season started off well again with a 4-0 win over Suttonians. This time round we beat Pembroke on our home pitch, but drew with Skerries and Old Alex, and lost to UCD again. We had almost given up hope of winning the league but were still fighting for promotion, when UCD also dropped some vital points, therefore leaving us at the top of the league table at the end of the season.

In the Irish Junior Cup we faced Bray in the first round, and even though we had dominated a lot of the game they managed to score. A bad start to the cup campaigns, but our main focus was on the league. In the Leinster Cup we faced Muckross in the first round. In an exciting match that went to extra time, we finally pulled through as winners. In the next round we faced Pembroke in a game that was very evenly matched with play going from end to end. Pembroke scored half way through the first half and despite great efforts Railway couldn’t get on the scoreboard. We were also involved in some fundraising with the St Patrick’s Day breakfast in the clubhouse! The team managed to show their skills in the kitchen aswell as on the pitch by providing a tasty and filling start to the day for those going to support the cup final. There were a number of junior interprovincial representatives from the team, with Shona Doyle (vice-captain) and Emma Curran on the winning Leinster team, Monica Duggan on the South-East team (along with her sister Helena who wasn’t available for us this year), and Ruth Hutchinson on the Connacht team.

So overall it was a great season for the seconds, and hopefully we will be able to sustain it into next season. Thanks to everyone who played, coached, managed, refereed and supported.

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