Hockey: Top of table clashes in men's and women's leagues this weekend

The Ballsbridge club have steadily added strong players to their line-up over the past few seasons with midfielder Ellen Curran (from UCD) and defender Issy Delamer (Trinity) adding real quality.

With Orla Macken also pushing for inclusion in the senior Irish setup, Emma Buckley between the posts and the likes of Sinead Loughran, Aisling Naughton and Leah McGuire in the line-up, there is quality in each area of the field.

For coach Gavin Groves, he feels the side are in a good spot, one point behind Pegasus with four wins from six outings to date. A win on Saturday at Serpentine Avenue could potentially see them leapfrog their rivals and go top.

“We are happy enough with the form we have shown. We had a really tough start to the league so to be sitting in the top three at this stage is ok. Every week is difficult and brings a tough opponent but it’s good to be involved in such a competitive league.

“We know how organised and disciplined Pegasus can be so we know we will have to perform well to get the result we want.”

For Pegasus, their tricky forwards Taite Doherty and Lucy McKee have put in serious star turns to date this season to lift the Belfast side to the top of the table at this stage. There is a wealth of experience at hand with Shirley McCay, Alex Speers and Ruth Maguire offering guidance to new stars like Niamh McIvor and Ella Armstrong.

There will be plenty checking their Twitter feeds for score updates just down the road in Milltown where Old Alex — equal second on 13 points — host Belfast Harlequins.

UCD have been the league’s entertainers to date, their matches yielding almost five goals a game. They host Catholic Institute at Belfield in a lunchtime tip-off, an important one for the sides in fourth and fifth to keep contact with the leading trio. Likewise, sixth placed Railway Union meet Loreto for the third time already this term; the first EYHL meeting was a draw while Railway prevailed in a shoot-out in the Irish Senior Cup so expect this one to be extremely tight. Cork Harlequins’ date with Muckross has reverted to December.

On the men’s side, there is just one game on the EYHL agenda from which any winner between Lisnagarvey and Three Rock Rovers will catapult themselves into pole position after Glenanne fell to their first defeat of the season last weekend.

It is a back match from early October when Three Rock were involved in the Euro Hockey League in Antwerp.

Garvey won their last meeting just over 12 months ago in a cracker at Comber Road 4-2 but Rovers have a much changed line-up since then with five players emigrating for professional hockey or work reasons.

In their stead, Ryan Spencer and Matteo Romoli have made big impacts along with the return of Ali Empey, Mark Samuel and Andrew Keane.

For Garvey, they are more settled in terms of line-up with the three Nelson brothers causing havoc in the forward lines, going on a run of four successive wins in the EYHL.