Three Rock Host Monkstown in Saturday’s EYHL Game at Rathdown
Saturday lunchtime at Rathdown is where Irish hockey’s attention should be this weekend. Three Rock Rovers’ first team host Monkstown in the men’s EY Hockey League at 12:20pm local time on Saturday 31 October, and it is a game both sides need for very different reasons.
Three Rock will still be smarting from Round 5. They went to Grange Road and lost 2-1 to YMCA, the kind of result that scrambles the middle of the table and leaves a team looking over its shoulder instead of up it. At home, with their own crowd behind them, they will expect to put that right. Three Rock are one of the league’s established powers, and home games against sides below them are the ones title challengers do not drop.
Monkstown, meanwhile, come in with something to build on. Their first win of the season came in Round 5, against Corinthian, with Lee Cole back from injury and marking his return with a brace. That is the kind of result that can turn a season around. A team that has waited for a first win plays differently afterwards, looser, more confident, and Monkstown will travel to Rathdown believing they can make it two in a row.
The wider picture is worth remembering. Round 5, played on 17 October, was a weekend of tiny margins. Pembroke Wanderers beat last season’s runners-up Banbridge in a shootout to go joint top. Lisnagarvey, the defending league and Champions Trophy champions, drew with Avoca but took the shootout bonus point to stay in the mix. Portrane recorded their first-ever topflight win, beating fellow promoted side Cork Harlequins. This is a ten-team, 18-round season, and nobody was running away with it a fortnight ago. That is what makes Saturday matter: every dropped point at home is a point someone else picks up.
There is plenty else on at Three Rock on Saturday too. The club’s third women play Wexford at 10:00am, the second women face Trinity at 11:00am, and the first women play Portrane in an EYHL2 qualifier at 1:00pm on the front pitch. It is a full club day, and the men’s game at 12:20pm on the back pitch sits right in the middle of it.
No current standings are claimed here, because the results from the rounds since 17 October were not in the sources read for this piece. What is certain is the fixture, the venue, the time, and the form both sides showed last time out. Three Rock need to bounce back. Monkstown need to prove their first win was a turning point, not a one-off. Saturday at Rathdown will tell us which story is true.
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