Away goal a must for Cork C of I

Men's Hockey Club Championships quarter-finals, second leg: The jostling's over, it's all-or-nothing time in the Club Championship qualifiers, which reach the second-leg stage of the quarter-finals tomorrow.

Two of last season's finalists - Cork Church of Ireland, the defending club champions, and Instonians, the Irish Senior Cup holders - need to dig deep and find the form that yielded them their most recent major honours if they are to come through testing away legs and win a place in the line-up for next weekend's finals.

Fighting talk, along the lines of "don't write us off just yet", emanated from the Instonians camp this week as the Ulster side prepared for the second leg of their quarter-final showdown with Corinthians at Whitechurch.

The Dubliners, though, are probably the least likely to write off Instonians, even after producing the upset of last weekend, when they won the first leg, 2-1, at Queen's, with Adrian Missen scoring twice.

Neither will Annadale believe the toughest part of their quarter-final task is complete, having come away from Cork last Saturday with a scoreless draw against C of I - the Ulster champions will have been content with that draw, but anxious about their failure to register an away goal.

Annadale will trust, though, that their home form this season - at "Fortress Lough Moss", as assistant coach Andrew Smyth has labelled it - will see them through.

C of I will trust that if they can breach Annadale's defence the resulting away goal would make that fortress seem a little less impregnable. The Munster side also has the memory of that decisive 3-1 win over Annadale in last year's club finals to boost them ahead of the tie.

Two of Leinster's three quarter-final representatives, Pembroke Wanderers and Three Rock Rovers, would appear to have their work cut out overturning first-leg deficits.

Pembroke lost 4-1 to Lisnagarvey, who finished third in Ulster this season, at Havelock Park last weekend and, so, are in need of a nigh-on miraculous comeback at Serpentine Avenue tomorrow to put themselves through to the finals - Pembroke, in need of goals, will look to Justin Sherriff and Gordon Elliott to do the miracle working.

Three Rock, meanwhile, must reverse their 2-1 first-leg defeat at Grange Road - when Christian Judd's goal four minutes from time revived, however slenderly, their hopes - to stay alive in the second leg at Farmers Cross where Cork Harlequins, the Irish Senior Cup beaten finalists, will expect to finish off the tie.

WEEKEND FIXTURES

Club Championships: Quarter-finals, second legs (first leg scores in brackets) - Cork Harlequins (2) v Three Rock Rovers (1), Farmers Cross, 12.0; Pembroke Wanderers (1) v Lisnagarvey (4), Serpentine Avenue, 2.0; Corinthian (2) v Instonians (1), Whitechurch, 2.0; Annadale (0) v Cork Church of Ireland (0), Lough Moss, 2.0.