I arrived at Alexandra College at 1:15 pm on my whistle-stop tour of Dublin on Saturday. However, it took me another 20 minutes to find the entrance to the playing fields and the game was underway when I finally took up my position at the end of the pitch.

The game was scoreless at that point but Loreto were on the attack, driven on by captain Sarah Torrens, and that was pretty much the state of play for the bulk of the half hour that I was there.

As a newcomer to hockey, I must say it was a very impressive all field press that Loreto were playing, harrying their opponents at every opportunity and breaking quickly with, Ireland U19 star, Aisling Murray and Siofra O’Brien prominent in attack.

Alex withstood the early pressure with Sarah Robinson working particularly hard across the back line alongside Niamh Sweeney and keeper Holly Micklem, all three making timely interventions as the first quarter ended scoreless.

Loreto got their breakthrough on the 21st minute with youngster Rebecca Fitzpatrick latching on to a loose back pass to coolly round the keeper and slide the ball home. Loreto continued to press for the remainder of the half but there was no further score before I had to leave for my next game.

In the second half Loreto added three more goals through Sarah Torrens, O’Brien and Grace Donald with Alex responding through a goal from Mikayla Power for a final score of 1 – 4 in Loreto’s favour.

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