Women's Hockey: Loreto's third league defeat in their last four games would appear to have loosened their grip on the Leinster title they have won for the last two seasons, with the team trailing leaders Hermes by seven points.

Before Saturday Old Alexandra and Hermes had registered wins over the defending champions, and Railway Union joined the club with a 1-0 victory at Park Avenue, captain Ros Lynch getting the goal.

Hermes, meanwhile, dropped their first points of the season after being held to a 1-1 draw by Alexandra, with the increasingly prolific Zanya Dahl scoring her seventh goal of the campaign and the first Hermes had conceded in six league games.

Pembroke Wanderers, then, were able to draw level with Hermes at the top of the table, two points clear of Railway, by beating Corinthian 4-2 at Serpentine Avenue.

At the half-way stage of last season, after nine games, Pembroke had just 10 points; they now have 16 from six games, a fair indication of their progress - they have still to play Hermes and Loreto, though, before the half-way point of this campaign.

A 4-0 win over Clontarf, with goals from Fiona Braddish and Lisa Jacob and two of the team's Munster contingent, Jane Bourke and Marie O'Connell, lifted UCD to sixth place, while Trinity and Three Rock shared the points in Santry in a 2-2 draw.

Church of Ireland made it five wins out of five with a 4-0 defeat of the University of Limerick to stay top of the Munster table while a Sarah Wilkinson hat-trick sent Ulster champions Pegasus, seeking their ninth successive title this season, on their way to a 6-0 win over Ballymena.

LEINSTER LEAGUE - Division One: Trinity 2 (L Johnston, R Wallace), Three Rock 2 (EJ Walsh 2); Pembroke Wanderers 4 (S Clarke, E MacNicholas, K Little, S Kane), Corinthian 2 (C McGowan, C Shaw); Clontarf 0, UCD 4 (F Braddish, L Jacob, J Bourke, M O'Connell); Hermes 1 (L Caulfield), Old Alexandra 1 (Z Dahl); Railway Union 1 (R Lynch), Loreto 0.