IT WAS left to young defender Graham Dowling to register Avoca's first goal in the European Cup Winners' Cup A division in Reading yesterday. The Irish representatives, who failed to score in their three pool matches, lost their final game, 4-3, to AH and BC Amsterdam but it was an honourable defeat at the hands of one of the Continent's most illustrious club sides.
With Avoca trailing 3-0 at the interval to two clinical short corner strikes by Frank Rutgers after eight minutes and then a penalty from Marten Eikelboom, the eager Dowling sparked off a revival when he loped through from the back to reduce the deficit assertively in the 41st minute.
Trevor Dagg converted a penalty award with aplomb shortly afterwards and although Eikelboom found the target again from another penalty to make it 4-2 Dagg put away his second stroke to allow Amsterdam to win only by the minimum margin.
Having succumbed to Grunwald of Poland in a crucial pool game, it was a relief for the Dutch team to remain in the top six overall, particularly with such notable figures as Olympic gold medallists Taco van den Honert and Jacques Brinkman in their line up.
For Avoca, New Zealand international Paul Derham played his most effective match of the tournament while of the developing players, centre back David Hanna, again showed his metier for hockey of the highest class. "Missing some of our strongest members of last season's side, we were always going to struggle in this tournament, said Dagg, "but we stuck at it and the five or six new guys have learnt a lot."
Gladbacher, who overpowered Avoca in the opening match, emerged as champions with a comprehensive 7-2 defeat of Reading in yesterday's final.
. Pegasus missed out on the bronze medals in the A division of the Women's European Cup Winners' Cup tournament when they were beaten 5-1 by Russelsheimer in yesterday's classification match in Utrecht.
The Germans converted their first two penalty corners in the opening 21 minutes through Denise Klecker and Britta Becker and Tanja Dickenscheid added a hat trick after the restart.
The Pegasus reply came in the 52nd minute when Claire McMahon scored an excellent individual goal to cut the deficit to 3-1.
Dublin woman Ger Shearin - shared the umpiring duties in the final, which resulted in a 4-1 win for hosts Kampong over Ipswich.
