With four wins out of four, 11 goals scored and none conceded, Ulster cruised to their 12th successive Under-21 Interprovincial title at the weekend. They followed their victories over Leinster and Munster on Saturday with two comfortable wins against Connacht and South East at Grange Road yesterday to finish on maximum points, three ahead of runners-up Munster.
Portadown's Jill Orbinson was the star for Ulster with seven goals in four games, including a hat-trick in their 4-0 defeat of South East, while two other players who have already represented their province at senior level, Anya Bowers and Shauna Parkhill, were also in outstanding form. Leinster had gone in to the tournament with high hopes of ending Ulster's domination of under-21 hockey but they soon faded after a 10 defeat by the champions in Saturday's opening match - Parkhill scored the only goal after ten minutes, turning home Pamela Magill's shot from a short corner. It proved to be Ulster's closest contest of the weekend. A goal in each half from Orbinson and another from Suzanne Beaney gave them a 3-0 win over Munster; another Orbinson double helped them to victory by the same margin against Connacht before the Portadown forward's hat-trick against South East rounded off Ulster's programme of matches with a 4-0 win.
Munster secured second place by beating Leinster 2-1 yesterday, Johanna Hyland scoring their winner eight minutes from the time after Leinster's Dawn Kelly had equalised EJ Walsh's first half strike. Torrential rain forced the abandonment of the final match of the tournament between Leinster and Connacht - Leinster were leading 1-0 at the time with a goal from Railway Union's Cathy McKean.
At the conclusion of the tournament the Irish under-21 selectors named the 20-player panel that will spend a week training in Sicily next month, before playing two internationals against the Italian under-21 team. South East goalkeeper Shelly Ann Quilty (Trinity) was rewarded for producing some of the weekend's finest individual displays by winning a place on the panel that includes eight of the victorious Ulster squad. The selectors also named ten players who will join the training panel for the build-up to next year's Under-21 European Championships in Belfast.
