Hook Hockey

Hermes set up Lille Euro final date

Women’s EuroHockey Club Champions Challenge I
Hermes 3 (A O’Flynn, E Horan, A Connery) SK Slavia Praha 1 (N Hrachkova)
Hermes gained one of the final places on offer with a strong 3-1 victory over Slavia Praha in Wettingen to continue their perfect record in the competition after three days.

They started brightly, creating a number of chances in the opening minutes. Following good work by Sinead Connery, they won their first penalty corner which Audrey O’Flynn drilled home beautifully.

Her low strike was her first goal for Hermes since returning from surgery on her broken jaw, sustained in the Olympic qualifiers.

From there, the Dubliners maintained plenty of possession for long spells but found Andrea Vancurova a formidable foe between the Slavia posts.

In response, though, the Czech side did win four corners which Mary Goode was forced to deal with before Hermes made the game safe in the second half.

A sequence of four short corners could not extend the margin but Eimear Horan netted her third goal of the tournament with a far post tap in from a lovely cross-shot from Aoife Harte.

Praha continued to counter well and won another series of corners that Goode repelled before the game was eventually closed out eight minutes from time when Aine Connery (pictured) applied a simple finish to Horan’s baseline pull-back.

Late on, Nikola Hrachkova volleyed in from a chipped reverse-stick cross but there was scarcely time for a restart as Hermes had the win in the bag.

They will now face Lille in one of two finals on Monday afternoon, the other featuring Pool A table-toppers SG Amsicora and Austria’s HC Wels. The winners of those two games will share gold and receive promotion.

Hermes: M Goode, C McGilp, S McCarthy, A O’Flynn, F Connery, R Burke, S Connery, A Harte, C Quinlan, M Crowley, A Connery
Subs: L Jacob, G Pinder, K McComish, E Horan

Slavia Praha: A Vancurova, A Reinosova, T Mejzlikova, K Poloprutska, K Kosova, L Sipalova, K Dukatova, A Mejzlikova, A Bizova, G Dukatova, V Novakova
Subs: K Vyskocilova, N Hrachova, K Srnova, L Kubkova, J Styblova

Pool B: Hermes 3 SK Slavia Praha 1; HC Wels 1 Rotweiss Wettingen 0
Ranking: 1. Hermes 15pts (+7) 2. HC Wels 11pts (+1) 3. Sk Slavia Praha 7pts (-3) 4. Rotweiss Wettingen 2pts (-5)

Pool A: Dundee 1 SG Amsicora 3; Lille Metropole 3 Praga 0
Ranking: 1. SG Amsicora 15pts (+7) 2. Lille Metropole 11pts (+4) 3. Dundee Wanderers 4pts (-4) 4. Praga 2pts (-7)