Hockey: The race for the Statoil Leinster Senior A title goes down to the final game of the season after second-placed Hermes beat leaders Old Alexandra 2-0 at Belfield last night .
Goals in the third and 55th minutes from Irish striker Jenny Burke gave Hermes the three points they needed to keep alive their hopes of retaining the title.
A win or a score draw against Muckross next Tuesday night at Belfield would see them overtake Alexandra who have finished their campaign.
Meanwhile Glenanne qualified for next season's Irish Senior Cup by beating Trinity 2-1 in the Senior A eighth place play-off at Beaufort last night. Sarah Carroll scored both their goals.
Boxing: The controversial light welterweight semi-final in the National Senior Boxing championships will be decided in the ring after all and not in the court room as was feared.
The contestants are Seanie Barrett of the Rylane Club in Cork and holder Mark Wickham of Wexford's St Patrick's-St Anthony's club. They had met a few weeks ago in the semi-final but confusion reigned after the Cork boxer had been given a 9-8 verdict.
The Wexford club objected immediately on the grounds that after the scoring computer had broken down in the first round, jury voting should not have been used to reach a result.
The IABA were legally advised to order a re-match, a decision with which the Rylane club and its legal advisers did not confirm until yesterday. The bout will go on in conjunction with the Ireland-US international tomorrow night at the National Stadium.
Tennis: British Davis Cup captain David Lloyd hit back at Pete Sampras last night over the world number one's jibe about the "the half-British, half-Canadian team."
Sampras, who made the comment in a post-match press conference following his 6-2 7-6 (8-6) defeat to Richard Krajicek in the quarter-finals of the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, was referring to Canadian-born Greg Rusedski.
Lloyd said: "All I can say is half of America is Italian, and we don't query that. . . Greg has a British passport, it's as simple as that."
In the women's event, Serena Williams won her 14th match in a row, beating compatriot Monica Seles 6-2 6-3, and her sister Venus edged Germany's Anke Huber 63 5-7 7-6 (7-4).
Motor Sport: Colin McRae drove drove to a second successive victory in the Portuguese rally yesterday and now trails defending international champion Tommi Makinen by just two points. The 30-year-old was joined on the victory rostrum by younger brother Alister who won the two-litre category.
Cycling: Sunday's top cycling event, the Des Hanlon memorial race at Carlow, is unlikely to go ahead because of a clash of personalities as the Leinster Federation of the Irish Cycling Federation appointed Eddie Dawson from Ballon in Carlow as commissar.
This year the event was to be run by the Dan Morrissey-sponsored club who do not agree to have Dawson in control.
Boys' Hockey: Scoring twice in the last six minutes, Kilkenny College beat Wesley 2-1 in the Leinster Schools' Senior League play-off at Ballinteer yesterday to complete a first league and cup double.
As was the case in the cup final, which Kilkenny won 1-0, the game was tightly fought. This time, Wesley took the lead through Graeme McCoy with 15 minutes to go, but Jamie Gahan equalised following a short corner and in a breakaway substitute Gavin Bourke scored the winner.
Kilkenny: S Ellis; L Wilson, S Thompson, P Hegarty, E Bryan; E O'Mahony, D O'Gorman, J Gahan, H Kelly; M Magnier (capt), K White. Subs: G Sharman, G Bourke.
Wesley: W Armstrong; A Macken, D Wilkinson, J Cuppage, A Walker; A Varian, P McConnell (capt), J Blakeney; J Griffin, G McCoy, A O'Kane. Subs: D Roche, B Sleeman.
Umpires: H Donnelly, J Girdham.
