In golfing terms, Saturday is moving day. For all of the four clubs taking place in the Irish Senior Cup semi-finals on Saturday it is move on or move off the stage. In a mini tournament style finale, the semi-finals are followed by the final on Sunday in UCD.
The top four men’s teams in the EY Hockey League (EYHL) face each other in Saturday’s semi-finals with top of the table Glennane playing third-placed Three Rock Rovers in St Andrew’s at 3pm in what will be the game of the weekend.
Glennane, remarkably are undefeated in the EYHL with 12 wins and three draws from 15 matches and have a nine-point cushion at the top of the table over Ulster’s Lisnagarvey. Rovers are one point adrift of Lisnagarvey and 10 points behind Glenanne.
Missed out
Rovers are arriving back from Eurohockey League action in Rotterdam, where they narrowly missed out on reaching the knockout phase of eight teams by St Germain but will hope their sharpness is holding.
The winners of that match will face either Pembroke or Lisnagarvey on Sunday. It is the Dublin side that must travel to Hillsborough with the last meeting demonstrating how little there is between the clubs, the match ending 3-3.
Pembroke last won the trophy in 2009 with Lisnagarvey having to go back to 2005 for the last time they were successful. Of the four teams remaining in the competition Rovers’s win in 2014 is the most recent.
The winners of both the women's and men's semi-finals will meet in the finals in Belfield on Sunday with the women's event first up at 1pm and the men's match tipping off at 3:45pm. Both finals will be streamed live. In between the two fixtures, there will be a Parahockey blitz between Monkstown, Three Rock Rovers and Railway Union.
Fixtures
Saturday
Irish Senior Cup semi-finals: Glenanne v Three Rock Rovers, St Andrews 3.00pm; Lisnagarvey v Pembroke, Comber Road 3.00pm.
Sunday
Irish Senior Cup Final UCD 3.45pm
Glenanne/Three Rock Rovers v Lisnagarvey/Pembroke.
