"Crisis? What crisis," the players of Muckross are entitled to ask after the opening weekend of the new Statoil Leinster League season. Despite beginning the defence of their title without a successor to coach Ian Steepe - and without the services of Deirdre Courtney, who is pregnant, and Mary Logue, who has joined Railway Union - it was business as usual for the champions who beat Railway 5-0 at Park Avenue on Saturday.
Meanwhile two of the teams expected to challenge them for the title this season, Hermes and Loreto, were taking points off each another at Belfield, allowing Muckross to take up their familiar spot at the top of the table after the first round of fixtures. Crisis indeed.
Railway were in no fit shape to give Muckross a testing start to the new campaign. Unable to field Mary Logue against her former team-mates, because of work commitments, they were also without Irish under-18 international Ciara O'Brien and goalkeeper Janet Quinn, while Cathy McKean and Rosie O'Reilly only returned from holidays on Saturday morning.
To add to their woes, Mary Doorly, who joined the club from Muckross Park during the summer, was taken to hospital after 40 minutes of her senior hockey debut when an accidental collision with Ciara McGrath, who was also injured, left her with a nasty head wound.
And so Muckross took full advantage of their depleted opponents, scoring five times through McGrath, Kathy Johnston (who has returned to hockey after having a baby), Orla Bell and Teresa Hurley (twice).
Over at Belfield Jenny Burke, Hermes' new club captain, put her side one up in the first half against Loreto with a brilliantly-taken goal but that was cancelled out by Mary Barnwell 10 minutes from time when she collected a short corner, made room for herself on the right before firing the ball past a helpless Sarah Hilliard.
While Loreto would have liked to have added a few more players to their squad during the summer, they at least retained the services of Barnwell who, happily for them, shelved any retirement plans. How many seasons is that with Loreto? "Bleep, bleep," she replied after the match. "I first played in 19-muffle-muffle." Further probing revealed her debut year to be 1975, a year when, she is painfully aware, more than a few of the players at Belfield on Saturday had not yet been born.
"I was beginning to find the routine of going out training every Tuesday and Thursday a bit of a struggle last year but we have so many young players here it's kind of like a breath of fresh air to still be involved. I had intended last season not to play again because I felt sure we had a team to win something and I felt I could retire happy then - but I thought about it over the summer and decided to give it one more go," she said, convinced that this Loreto team can go one better than their second-place finish last season. Old Alexandra had a comfortable start to their season, beating Glenanne 3-0 in Tallaght, but newly-promoted Genesis were unlucky to go down 1-0 to Pembroke Wanderers, for whom Ali McSweeney scored the winner, at Serpentine Avenue.
