A 2-1 victory for Trinity over UCD at Belfield yesterday suggests the annual Colours hockey match was a closely contested affair but, in truth, the short-corner count - 10 to Trinity, two to UCD - reflects the story of the 70 minutes with more accuracy.
For the first time in over a decade Trinity entered the match as a Leinster Senior A team, after they won promotion at the end of last season, and while their Senior B opponents showed a desire for victory over the old foe, they rarely matched the sheer quality of their attacking play.
Trinity's front three of Anya Bowers, Louise O'Hagan and Jan Perrin, supported by captain Zanya Dahl in midfield, can be a thrilling sight when he full flow and when the trio combined brilliantly in the 44th minute, to put their team two up, the match, as a contest, was all but over.
Bowers rounded off that move to add to her 22nd minute goal from a short corner and had other opportunities to complete her hat-trick but was thwarted by UCD's Irish under-21 goalkeeper Sara Hooper.
Hooper's captain Johanna Phelan, who worked tirelessly throughout the match, came close to reducing Trinity's lead in the 55th minute, just failing to connect with a free from Michelle Spellman, but two minutes later Vanessa Hogan made the Trinity defence pay for their failure to clear the ball from the circle when she slipped a shot past Barbara Sheehy-Skeffington.
Phelan, Spellman and Lorraine Furney led the assault on the Trinity goal in the final stages in search of the equaliser, but the central defensive wall of Cathy Curran and Sarah Rand, another Irish Under-21 international, proved impossible to break down. Trinity should have put the game beyond doubt from at least one of four short corners in the closing minutes but, in the end, Bowers' double strike proved sufficient.
