Local girls help thrash opposition

It was a similar scoreline to the 82-11 result in the last meeting between the teams 10 months ago so Kingsway coach Montgomery wasn’t getting carried away.

“We had hoped that the Republic would push us a bit closer this time but they were missing a couple of players and would lack the high-level international experience our girls have.

“But it was a useful exercise in getting out on court and an opportunity to try out a range of options and combinations ahead of the European Championships in May,” she said.

Northern Ireland’s new Aussie supremo Jill McIntosh will be back in the country next week and her assistant Montgomery will have useful feedback for her from this match, the girls in green’s first outing since the 2011 World Cup in Singapore.

The game was played in six 10-minute periods instead of the conventional four quarters to facilitate Montgomery mixing and matching from a squad of 15.

Eight of last summer’s World Cup heroes featured for the home team including Northern Ireland’s player of that tournament, Larkfield captain Caroline O’Hanlon, who had two of her clubmates alongside her.

Two of the Larkfield quartet from the Singapore squad, Kyla Bowman and Laura Mason, were missing but Deborah McCarthy was on duty and there was a return to the set-up for O’Hanlon’s fellow doctor Eimear Wright.

Larkfield should complete their Premier League programme tonight (Fri) on a winning note by beating strugglers Laganside but it has been a hugely disappointing second half to the season for Denise Prue’s side.

Unbeaten before Christmas, Larkfield have lost six out of six against the Belfast big two in 2012 including going down 53-41 to newly crowned champions Graduates last Friday and will only finish third.

Kingsway however are on a great run in the Premier League’s lower section and continued their winning streak by beating Holywood 49-45. They now face another in-form side, Ballymoney-based Causeway, at Lisburn Racquets tonight (8.30pm).