Old Alexandra resume their quest for their first Leinster Senior League title since 1991 tomorrow morning when they meet their old adversaries Muckross at Rathdown. Since they beat Muckross on the second weekend of the season, David Judge's team has been unvanquished in all competitions and lead the table by one point from defending champions Hermes.
"We're going really well, there's a great spirit in the team and we're a lot fitter than we were last season," said captain Carol Metchette. "Losing to Loreto on the first day of the season was a blow but we needed time for the new players to gel and since then we've been in really good form.
"It's a long season, though, in terms of the number of matches we have to play but they're all squeezed in to such a short period of time - it's hard to believe that our trip to Rome (for the European Cup Winners' Cup) is only 14 weeks away. Hopefully we can keep it going but it's such a competitive league this year with so many teams capable of taking points off each other."
With just eight league matches to go, Muckross - who are four points behind Old Alexandra - will need to avoid a repeat of their 1-0 defeat by the leaders at Milltown in September if they are to retain realistic hopes of regaining the title they lost to Hermes last season. With eight of their players on duty with Ireland in Spain this week, Hermes' game against Railway Union has been postponed.
Munster League leaders Harlequins, who have Rachel Kohler, Karen O'Brien and Sharon Hutchinson away on Irish duty, also have an extra week to recover from the festive season while in Ulster former Irish international Lynsey McVicker makes her debut for Ballymoney against Ards in Coleraine after her appointment as player-coach. The former Portadown forward recently completed a hockey scholarship at the University of Philadelphia and is hoping to add to her 38 Irish caps, the last of which she won in 1997. The quarter-finals of the Irish Junior Cup take place this weekend with the finalists from three years ago, Pegasus II and Enniscorthy, meeting in Belfast. The 1997 beaten finalists Kilkenny (who, like Enniscorthy, lost to the Ulster side) take on Our Lady's Terenure at Milltown while Diocesan entertain UCC II at High School in Dublin and Wexford meet Cork C of I at Scanlon Park, Kilkenny.
