Hockey: Despite concluding their league season on Saturday with their ninth successive victory Loreto's hopes of a third first division title in a row are now hanging by the slimmest of threads. A win for Hermes tonight against UCD will clinch them the title - and if they slip up they have a second chance against Railway Union on Thursday evening.

Loreto, who beat Trinity 4-0, desperately needed Pembroke Wanderers to do them a favour against Hermes on Saturday, but it wasn't to be. Pembroke, who, at the halfway stage of the campaign, led the table on goal difference from Hermes, have drawn one and lost five of their last nine games.

The fifth was an emphatic 4-0 loss to Hermes at Booterstown, in which Molly Powers and Kristin Farrell scored two apiece.

Pembroke, who were nine points ahead of Loreto at Christmas but finish the season eight points behind, slumped to fifth in the table, missing out on qualification for the All-Ireland Club Championships. Railway Union will join Hermes and Loreto in the tournament, their place in the newly formatted eight-team championships secured by their 4-0 defeat of Three Rock, with Sarah McMaster scoring a hat-trick.

Loreto's goals against Trinity, two in each half, came from Jessica Lynch (two), Sarah O'Meara and Niamh Small. Should they relinquish their title it is their pre-Christmas form, when they lost four games, that they will rue - their winning streak came in the absence of their international players, goalkeeper Louisa Healy, forwards Cathy McKean and Nikki Symmons and the more recently capped Nikki Keegan.

Old Alexandra completed their season with a 3-0 win over UCD, enough to lift them above Pembroke in to fourth.

Corinthian also ended on a winning note, beating bottom club Clontarf 2-0.