Sherriff stars in trophy showdown Men's Hockey

Johnny Watterson

Pembroke Wanderers, with 10 goals over two games, won the Stephen Doyle Trophy on home soil yesterday at Serpentine Avenue. Once again Ireland striker Justin Sherriff destroyed the Corinthian challenge, hitting four goals in a repeat of last week, to add to Andy Thomson's strike from play for a 5-2 win.

Pembroke went 2-0 up in the match before Corinthian fought back and closed the gap to 2-1 through Robbie Burns, a scoreline they took into half-time.

Then five minutes into the second half Burns levelled the score to give Corinthian fleeting hope of an upset.

But that quickly evaporated as a Pembroke surge over the last half hour delivered three more goals, ensuring that the trophy remained at Serpentine Avenue.

Pembroke had cruised into the final when they hit six goals against Three Rock Rovers on Saturday to no reply, while Corinthian's place had been decided by a much narrower margin, beating Glenanne 2-1.

Meanwhile in Munster, the current women's Irish under-21 and Portadown coach Stephen Jackson has joined with the province once more for the interprovincial tournament in February.

The Munster side, who were having problems finding a suitable coach, have agreed terms with Jackson, who has already won titles with them. Having taken the Irish under-21 side to Prague during the summer for the European Championships before settling into coaching at Portadown, Jackson now returns to familiar territory with the help of sponsorship from Aer Rianta/Cork Airport. The tournament itself takes place in Ulster.

Munster, one of the prime supporters of the development of an all-Ireland league competition, had their case illustrated at the weekend.

The top two teams, C of I and Harlequins, have known for some time how the best sides at the rugby World Cup feel when they run in cricket scores against weaker nations and they experienced those emotions again on Saturday, Harlequins crushing Catholic Institute 7-0 and C of I sending their second team out against UCC to take a share of the points with a 1-1 draw.

The Irish schools competition, which took place at a number of venues in Ulster, finished over the weekend, with Belfast's RBAI emerging as overall winners, narrowly beating Cork's Bandon Grammar in the final.

Wesley College, Bandon Grammar, RBAI and Banbridge Academy won their groups to go through to the semi-finals.

Dublin's Wesley College drew 2-2 with Bandon in one semi-final before the Cork side advanced on penalties while RBAI also drew with Banbridge 3-3 before winning 4-2 on penalties. In the final, the Belfast side again topped their opponents, finishing 2-2 and taking the trophy 4-2 on penalties.

Results in SPORTS ROUND-UP