HOCKEY:Ireland's four-match series against Australia at Belfield proved to be a sobering experience for coach Gene Muller and his players, the visitors, ranked fourth in the world (compared to Ireland's 14th) comfortably winning each of the unofficial games without conceding a goal.
Having won 3-0 and 6-0 on Wednesday and Thursday, the Australians were 4-0 up at half-time in Saturday's match, in which Muller fielded a more experienced team, Ciara O'Brien and Bridget McKeever among those who returned to the line-up.
Kate Hollywood, Hope Munroe, Madonna Blyth and Casey Eastham got the first-half goals for Australia, but they could add only one more after the break, Megan Rivers making it 5-0 in the final minute.
"This was the first time back for many players post the European Championships," said Muller. "We took too long to make decisions on the pitch and at times we looked uncomfortable in possession.
"We competed better in the second half but we need to learn to start at that level from the first whistle."
Muller got the improvement he was hoping for yesterday, the team unlucky to go in at half-time a goal down after an Emily Halliday short-corner strike was allowed to stand despite the Irish defence not being ready for the set-piece.
It was still 1-0 with just 10 minutes to go, but Rivers and Munro scored twice in 60 seconds to complete a 3-0 win.
On the club front Pembroke Wanderers went top of the Leinster first division with a 4-0 win over Three Rock, while Hermes conceded their first goal of the season in a 1-1 draw with Railway Union.
Unofficial international matches (at Belfield) - Saturday: Ireland 0, Australia A 5 (K Hollywood, H Munro, M Blyth, C Eastham, M Rivers). Yesterday: Ireland 0, Australia A 4 (E Halliday, M Rivers, H Munro).
Leinster League - Division One: Genesis 1 (H Hughes), Corinthian 4 (S Walker 2, H Warren, A Williams); Railway Union 1 (J McDonnell), Hermes 1 (A O'Flanagan); Three Rock 0, Pembroke Wanderers 4 (S Doyle, S Hall, S Collins, S Clarke). Division Two: Glenanne 1, Bray 2.
Leinster League - Division One
P W D L F A Pts
Pembroke 5 4 1 0 13 1 13 Railway 5 3 2 0 12 3 11 Hermes 5 2 3 0 13 1 9 Loreto 4 2 2 0 6 4 8 Alexandra 5 2 1 2 7 6 7 Trinity 5 1 2 2 3 7 5 Corinthian 5 1 1 3 8 11 4 UCD 4 0 3 1 2 3 3 Three Rock 5 0 2 3 3 15 2 Genesis 5 0 1 4 3 19 1
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/f1b9c8e1-66b0-4f83-ad11-12d4383c8edb.png)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)