Lisnagarvey are hopeful their early season EHL Men’s KO16 exploits will propel them to more trophies in the 2022/23 Irish season.

They landed their first ever win in the EHL when they ran up a 4-0 win over French side CA Montrouge before succumbing to a Kane Russell-inspired Hamburger Polo Club.

It was tight for a while but four corner flicks from Russell put the Hamburg side out of sight; nonetheless, defender Peter McKibbin said Garvey can take a huge amount from their performances.

“Overall, really proud of Lisnagarvey,” he said following the event. “We put up a good fight against Hamburger Polo Club; obviously we knew we were going in as underdogs and it would be a tough ask but we made a good showing. We kept it tight up until the last quarter and had a couple of chances which could have gone our way.”

It showed a gap in class between the Irish and German leagues, something, McKibbin is well versed in having played in Hamburg and the Bundesliga with Grossflotbeker GHTC in the past.

“These Polo lads, a lot of them are professional athletes and are training four or five times a week together. It is going to be tough to come up against them. We will have to keep working hard together as a group at Garvey, get as much time together on the pitch as we can [to close the gap] and you never know.” 

Their win over Montrouge did earn them a 9th place classification for the EHL Ranking Table, something which will likely boost their coefficient next summer when the new table is calculated.

And it has also given their early season form some impetus, sitting top of the EY Hockey League unbeaten with 10 points out of 12 available so far. It has them in good shape to challenge for more silverware having won five trophies last term.

“Being right at the start of our season, the EHL is a great stepping stone. We got a good win over Montrouge and put in a serious performance. We can carry that into the rest of the season and hopefully win a few more trophies this year.”