Wildcard Weekend - Match Report
Munster v Ulster (Instonians)

Bandon 0 Instonians 3 (John Watson, Mark Irwin, Paul Gleghorne)

Instonians will be back in the men's IHL next year after withstanding a game Bandon outfit at Garryduff yesterday.

The west Cork side made most of the running but lacked a killer instinct and accuracy in their passing, while they were left to rue the concession of a soft first-half goal that allowed Inst to sit back and hit on the break.

In a first half of few chances, the best two fell to Bandon skipper Ali Smith, who used his searing pace to good effect when given the opportunity.

Darren Beamish's searching long ball found Smith, who exchanged passes with Paul O'Leary but couldn't beat Nigel Skillen with his angled, flicked effort.

Inst's attacks mainly came from Chris Kirk's trickery and crash balls from skipper Paul Gleghorne, with one such effort re-routed to the backboard by John Watson, despite his touch taking much of the pace off the ball.

Bandon - for whom Graham Kingston, Rob Smith and Darren Beamish shone, especially in defensive mode - came straight back down the other end, but were controversially denied a penalty stroke when skipper Ali Smith was stick-tackled by goalkeeper Skillen as he attempted to round him after collecting Andrew Kingston's pinpoint through ball.

Advantage was played as Smith kept his footing, and with a covering defender on the line and the angle narrowed he squared for a diving David Smith, who failed to connect with the goal at his mercy.

Too many Bandon passes went astray as they lacked the accuracy required to chase the game, and Inst put a gloss on the scoreline with a couple of late corner goals.

The first saw the ball worked back to Mark Irwin in the push-out spot and he scored via the body of defender Chris Wood, before Gleghorne dragged home another in the last 30 seconds.