Ireland blitzed by US forces

WOMEN'S HOCKEY: Ireland 1 USA 3: AFTER A morale-boosting group stage, Ireland's hopes of a FIH Champions Challenge semi-final berth were shattered last night in Belfield by an American first-half blitz which left Gene Muller's scrapping in the fifth to eighth place play-offs.

Shannon Taylor’s first-half double had Ireland fumbling and they never got to grips with the world number 13 side whose high pressing style sucked the life out of Ireland. The Americans spent the first half camped in Irish territory as Katie O’Donnell’s tricks and Katie Reinprecht’s power pegged the side back.

Passes from defence were not sticking and half-time came as a welcome relief. But Rachel Dawson’s crisply hit third five minutes into the second period killed the contest entirely.

Emma Gray pulled off a penalty stroke save to deny Kayla Bashore-Smedley a fourth goal, tipping onto the post, while Audrey O’Flynn cracked a post before getting the home side’s consolation.

But too many sin-binnings, four in total, left Ireland struggling for momentum as a clamp down on technical fouls saw Lizzie Colvin, Áine Connery and Alex Speers all given two-minute time outs while Sinead McCarthy’s dissent earned her five minutes off.

It made for a frustrating day for coach Gene Muller who must now endeavour to make sure the positives from the group stages are not lost as Ireland go into the lower classification matches.

“When you don’t have the momentum, those decisions go against you,” he said. “They didn’t contribute to the outcome of the match but they certainly contributed to us not getting going. We had points in the match when we could have changed things. We mis-stopped two penalty corners at key times and it was all part of not being able to generate momentum.”

The result also brought the nature of the tournament into focus as the regular top two into the semi-final format has been replaced by an extra quarter-final stage. Criticism levels arose further as three of the final four would have been eliminated in normal circumstances with Spain incredibly getting that far without a normal time win to their name.

IRELAND:E Gray, M Harvey, C Sargent, E Smyth, E Clarke, A Speers, S McCay, J McDonnell, J O'Halloran, S McCarthy, N Symmons. Subs:L Jacob, A Connery, A O'Flynn, C Watkins, L Colvin.

USA:A Tran-Swensen, R Dawson, K Reinprecht, K O'Donnell, M Kasold, C Nichols, P Selenski, C Laubach, K Falgowski, K Bashore-Smedley, L Crandall. Subs:M Gonzalez, M Vittesse, M Cesan, S Taylor, J Reinprecht.

NEXT UP . . .

5th-8th place play-offs

Today

South Africa v India, 3.30pm

Ireland v Azerbaijan, 6pm

Semi-finals

Saturday

Spain v Japan, 1pm

Scotland v USA, 3.30pm

Final

Sunday, 4.30pm