Hermes can open up formidable gap

While it might be a little premature to describe a November league game as a potential title-decider should Hermes beat Muckross at Rathdown tomorrow, and thus open up a six-point gap between the teams, it would be difficult to imagine anyone but the defending champions finishing top of the Statoil Leinster Senior A table come March.

On Wednesday night, Hermes moved three points clear of Muckross when they beat Loreto 4-1, the former league leaders' first defeat of the season. The victory preserved their 100 per cent winning start to the season, which has seen them score 39 goals in just seven games - 23 of them shared between Jenny Burke (14) and former Muckross star Mary Logue (nine).

It wasn't until Wednesday, though, that they faced one of their three closest rivals, and after the Muckross game their next league fixture, following the senior interprovincial tournament in Cork, is against the third, the increasingly impressive Old Alexandra. Muckross, whose quest for a seventh consecutive title was halted by Hermes last season, should provide the leaders with their toughest examination yet, possessing, as they do, the best defensive record in Senior A. They have conceded just two goals in seven games.

Loreto, now five points adrift of Hermes, must pick up the pieces of their season which began so promisingly on the opening day when they beat Old Alexandra 2-0. Since then the same team has knocked them out of the Irish Senior Cup, and, before Wednesday's defeat by Hermes, they had already dropped league points to Railway Union and Pembroke Wanderers. Tomorrow they will hope to get back on track against Genesis at Beaufort.

In the only other Senior A game of the weekend, Clontarf continue their quest for their first point of the season against Trinity at Dardistown.

The game of the weekend in Munster should be the meeting of champions Harlequins and the University of Limerick, who are having an impressive debut season in the senior league. UCC, meanwhile, will hope to bounce back from the disappointment of last weekend's last-minute defeat by Portadown in the Irish Senior Cup when they play Belvedere in Ballincollig.

Up north, the Ulster Shield quarter-finals take place tomorrow with Ards having the dubious honour of playing the invincible Pegasus in Belfast. Collegians and Randalstown will expect to beat Section Two sides UUJ and Knock, respectively, while Portadown meet Ballymoney at Edenvilla Park.