Bandon mens 2nds got over their disappointment of losing in the Irish Junior Cup last Saturday with a win over Harelquins in the 3rd round of the Cork Cup. The tempo of the game was very slow in the opening minutes, however Harlequins took the initiative with a well taken goal from former Bandon player, Rob Jenkins. Bandon’s goalkeeper, Shane Teap, had made two impressive saves before Jenkins slotted the ball home on the third attempt.

Bandon were still at sixes and sevens and looked out of sorts until a goal from Trevor Martin settled Bandon back into the game. Before half time Teap was again at Bandon’s rescue when he was at full stretch to deflect a drag flick onto the post from a Harlequins short corner.

In the 2nd half Bandon began to dominate and played some expansive hockey and were rewarded with early goals from Ivan Bryan and Chris Wood from a short corner. Throughout the 2nd half Scott Sullivan and Ivan Bryan were at the heart of Bandons good play. Bryan got Bandons 4th with a well taken finish after good play from Sam McElroy. For the last few minutes of the game Harlequins attacked more and were unlucky not to score, but Bandon again had Teap to thank for keeping them out.

It was a mixed weekend for the club with two wins, two losses and one draw. Most disappointingly, the mens firsts lost 4-1 away to Catholic Institute in the Munster Senior Cup semi-final. Although missing some players, Bandon dominated most of the game apart from a 10 minute period in the first half when Institute managed to catch the Bandon defense napping and scored four goals! From then on Bandon pushed hard to get back into the game but Institute’s 11-man defense proved difficult to break-down, and Bandon, through Darren Beamish, only manged to pull one back.

In the weekend’s other games the mens thirds were unlucky to lose out on strokes to Limerick seconds in the McLean Cup semi-final but the mens seconds progressed in the Cork Cork Cup, defeating Harlequins thirds 4-1. (See separate match report)

The ladies firsts proved too strong for Waterford in their Munster Senior Plate semi-final, winning 4-0. However the ladies seconds will be disappointed to have let a 2 goal advantage slip as they drew 2-2 with Harlequins seconds in their league match.

All three mens teams are in action in different cup competitions this weekend. It starts tomorrow with the firsts who play away to Catholic Institute at 12.30pm in the Munster Senior Cup semi-final. On Sunday the thirds are also away to Limerick opposition in a semi-final – this time Limerick Hockey Club 2nds in the McLean Cup – at 1.30pm. Also at 1.30pm on Sunday, the seconds are playing Harlequins 3rds in the quarter finals of the Cork Cup.

On the ladies side the firsts are away to Waterford in the semi-finals of the Munster Senior Plate tomorrow at 12.30pm and the seconds are playing Harlequins 2nds away at 11.30am on Sunday in the league.

After beating Harlequins 4ths in the previous round, the Mens 3rds won 3-1 today against Midleton to progress to the Semi-final of Munster’s McLean Cup. Ronnie Beare got on the scoresheet twice and Ian Hosford got the other goal.

In today’s earlier games the Ladies 2nds lost out to Belvedere 1sts in their league match but the Mens 1sts continued their winning ways, with a 3-0 victory against Harlequins 2nds. Goals in the first half from Rob Smith and Dave Smith provided the perfect start and early in the second half Andrew Scannell added to the tally from the penalty spot. However, from then on the game became a scrappy affair and Bandon had Ian Hosford to thank for keeping out a number of short-corner attempts from Quins. Next weekend the Mens 1sts are away to Catholic Institute in the Semi-final of the Munster Senior Cup.

After a bright start in the Irish Junior Cup game today the mens 2nds were 1-0 up inside 20 minutes. Unfortunately soon after the tide turned though and Bangor ended up being too strong. The first of Bangors goals came about 5 minutes before half-time and three more followed in the second half without reply. At 3-1 down Bandon got back into the game and created some good chances but as they chased the game they left themselves exposed at the back, leaving Bangor in for one more.
Earlier today the Ladies 1sts three game winning streak came to an end when they lost 2-1 to C. of I. The ladies 3rds, however, got back to winning ways, beating Waterford 2-0. Bandon got off to the perfect start with their first goal coming inside one minute.
Tomorrow the remaining teams in the club are playing, with the mens 1sts playing away to Harlequins 2nds, the ladies 2nds at home to Belvedere and the mens 3rds at home to Harlequins 3rds in the McLean cup.

Our mens 2nds team take on Bangor today in the Irish Junior Cup second round. Having originally been scheduled for January 9th, the game was cancelled due to the heavy frost, so it will seem a long time since their 4-2 victory against NICS 2nds in November. Nonetheless John Dennis’ team will be feeling confident that they can shake off another Ulster team to progress to the 3rd round. The game is at 3.30pm in Bandon.

Thank you very much to everyone who has signed up to our league on sportsprophet.ie. We currently have 115 live entrants but I know some people have some paper entry forms to give me tomorrow. As long as I have the answers before the Ireland vs France game kicks off then I am happy to take them. I should also say at this point that I ended up going with my heart instead of my head and chose Ireland to win the Six Nations – just in-case anyone might acuse me of cheating – although I’m sure nobody would do that!! As with most people I went with the favourites in a lot of competitions but picked Spain for the World Cup, Mickelson for the Masters and McIlroy for the British Open (not sure if that was my heart instead of my head again though!!).

Anyway thanks again to those who entered and well done to everyone for doing such a good sales job! A few people in particular really put in a huge effort – I think you know who you are – so a special thanks to you.

Best of luck to all!

Welcome to the new Bandon Hockey Club website – we hope you like it! As you will see we have quite a few photos in the photo section which were all taken over the last year or so. I’m sure there’ll be a few surprises in there but nothing too bad! Anyone that has some photos from any game or social event that you’d like to put up then let us know.

You’ll see we also have a history section which provides an interesting insight into how the club got to where it is today. We hope to get more up there soon but it would be great to get some help from anyone with anything to share. In particular, it would be great to get some information about the club before it was re-established in 1975. Any old photos would also be great.

We hope to update the site at least once or twice a week so please keep checking back to see what’s going on. Alternatively you can just subscribe to the RSS feed (click the orange button to the right of the main menu) and then you will automatically receive new posts into your chosen feed reader I would personally recommend Netvibes or Pageflakes in case you’re wondering.  (If that all sounds like a different language to you then you’re probably best off ignoring it!)

Anyway enjoy the site and please feel free to leave some comments if you have anything you’d like to say. Please do note that you need to register to leave a comment though and all comments will be moderated so don’t waste your time saying anything contoversial..