Old Alexandra rose to the occasion and produced one of their best displays of the season at Grange Road yesterday to beat Irish Cup holders Hermes in the Coca Cola Women's Leinster Senior Cup final, the club's first success in the competition since 1993.
Hermes, looking jaded and a pale shadow of the team that beat Pegasus at Belfield on Saturday, were outplayed for most of the game by an Alexandra side that maintained a ferocious pace for 70 minutes in unseasonably sticky temperatures.
So dominant were they that their goalkeeper, Jenny King, was not called in to action until the 65th minute, when she kicked clear Jenny Burke's effort from a short corner. By then Hermes's Tara Browne had saved six goal attempts, with sweeper Helen Kilroy clearing another off her own line.
Against arguably the best midfield in the country Alexandra's Jan Perrin, Susan Keogh and Zanya Dahl were superb, with Perrin succeeding brilliantly in restricting Mary Logue's influence on the game. Up front Trish Conway, Fiona Sweeney and Richelle Flanagan hassled and harried the Hermes defence in to conceding 11 short corners, and it was from the 10th that they scored the opening goal.
Sweeper Tracey Skoyles, who once again enhanced her reputation as one of the finest strikers of a ball in the country, had been denied up to then by a string of Browne saves and Burke blocks from her short-corner strikes, but when her 61st minute attempt was deflected off Burke's stick Browne was left helpless as it looped high in to the net.
Five minutes later Alexandra were 2-0 up when Flanagan pounced on a rebound from a Browne save to sweep the ball home. The goal rounded off a marvellous display by the former Irish international (21 caps), who was on the 1991 Alexandra team that won the Leinster Senior Cup. After returning to Ireland from Australia last summer Flanagan was plagued by an old back injury and didn't play a full 70 minutes for the first team until last Saturday.
The second goal stung Hermes in to action and they pulled one back just two minutes later when Caitriona Carey set up Burke in front of goal to slot the ball past King. But there was to be no dramatic equaliser with Skoyles, Kerry Hiles, Cathy Curran and captain Carol Metchette keeping their composure, as they had done throughout the game, to soak up any pressure Hermes applied.
"It's lovely seeing a side that hasn't had any honours, in terms of playing for the national side or winning cups in the last few seasons, being rewarded like this today," said Alexandra coach David Judge after the game.
One trophy down, one to go for Alexandra. If Trinity manage to pull off an upset and beat Hermes on Sunday then Judge's team will be Leinster Senior A champions. If Hermes take something from that game then a draw at Belfield next Wednesday night, against the defending champions, would secure Alexandra their first league title since 1991.
"That's a new ball game altogether," insisted Judge. "Nothing we did today will work next week, so we have to start again."
Hermes: T Browne, H Kilroy, R Burke, C Carey, S McDonnell, M Logue, C Devine, F Manning (capt), J Burke, A Keane, D Sixsmith. Subs: A Byrne, R Walsh, S McCarthy.
Old Alexandra: J King, T Conway, S Keogh, T Skoyles, C Metchette (capt), J Perrin, K Hiles, C Curran, Z Dahl, F Sweeney, R Flanagan. Subs: H Agar, C Smyth.
Umpires: P Errity and K Eppel.
