A MARY LOGUE goal four minutes into the Leinster Senior Cup final at Grange Road yesterday added yet more silverware to the already bulging Muckross trophy cabinet but there was more than an element of farce about the occasion when the match was delayed for 40 minutes because of extra time in an under-16 schoolboys' game.

The finalists in the showcase of Leinster cup hockey, Muckross and Hermes, were left standing on the sidelines while the Three Rock Rovers and Aer Lingus boys' teams played an extra half hour to decide their B cup match.

There had already been discontent in both camps at having to play a league match 24 hours before yesterday's final, which is traditionally held on St Patrick's Day, and it has been a commonly expressed view that this season's Leinster Senior Cup has been relegated to the position of a minor competition.

The 1996-97 league season has been squeezed into a six-month period to free members of the Irish squad for preparations for August's World Cup qualifying tournament, hence the recent cramming of league and cup fixtures.

Hermes' midfielder Fiona Manning was one of a number of players and officials critical of the organisation of yesterday's final when an earlier start for the boys' match would have averted the possibility of a delay in the women's final.

"The cup final is supposed to be the highlight of the Leinster hockey year and basically it's been turned into a farce. We had to sit around for almost an hour watching a schoolboy match, it's crazy. For the Hermes players this was their first cup final, it was a big day, a big crowd but we arrived to discover that we had to hang around for all that time - it's almost a joke," said Manning.

Muckross coach Ian Steepe had also been less than happy about the delay in the start of the final but by full time he was more concerned with his team's continuing inability to convert short corners into goals.

Despite winning 14 short corners in the course of the 70 minutes, to Hermes' one, Logue's fourth minute strike was the only time Tara Browne was beaten. The Hermes goalkeeper saved a Patricia McHugh shot, from a short corner, but the rebound fell to McHugh again and her deflected effort was turned in by Logue.

Logue had a chance to double the lead in the 12th minute when Muckross were awarded a penalty stroke, when another McHugh shot struck Hermes' captain Helen Kilroy's foot on the line, but Browne made a superb save to her right and kept her team in the game.

In the first minute of the second half Muckross lost midfielder in a heavy fall. Bowtell left the ground with her arm in a sling and is now a serious doubt for next Saturday's Irish Senior Cup final, also against Hermes, and the club's two remaining league fixtures.

Muckross were forced to reorganise their midfield after Bowtell's departure and were put under greater pressure by Hermes but Sandra O'Gorman's goal was never seriously threatened.

At full time Steepe was happy with his team's successful defence of the trophy but more than a little frustrated by their failure to kill off the game. "Fourteen-one in corners does tell its own story. We should have the won the game more comfortably with all due respects to Hermes, but they didn't have one clear chance.

"Our corners still need drastic surgery despite them taking up 50 per cent of our valuable training time. Sometimes it's a problem in the slowness of the hitting, other times it's the drag-out - we never seem to get all the parts of the operation right. But we'll get there - next Saturday is another day and that's the one we really want," said Steepe.

Yesterday's victory was some consolation for Muckross whose 1-1 draw against Trinity on Saturday has given Loreto renewed hope of snatching the league title