Irish fail to secure Olympic hockey place

Ireland's bid for an Olympic hockey place ended at the hands of the USA who scored a golden goal winner in a 2-1 victory at the…

Ireland's bid for an Olympic hockey place ended at the hands of the USA who scored a golden goal winner in a 2-1 victory at the qualifying tournament in Auckland.

The Irish women had been two games away from claiming the final Athens berth but they fell at the first play-off despite a battling performance.

Keli Smith had given the Americans the lead two minutes after half-time but University of Limerick's Eimear Cregan grabbed an equaliser from a 45th-minute penalty corner to take the game into sudden-death extra-time.

However, four minutes from the end of the additional period the USA won a penalty corner and Tracey Fuchs converted the set-piece to put her side into the fifth place play-off against Korea for the final Olympic place.

READ MORE

On Saturday, Ireland face the seventh place play-off against Great Britain, whose disappointing campaign ended in heartbreak for the tournament's top seeds when they lost 2-0 to Korea.
 
Ireland coach Riet Kuper was disappointed to miss out.  "For whoever got beaten it was going to be very, very hard," she said.   "I don't think it was the best match between the teams. We were very aware of each other and, knowing what the state of the game was, some of the players were very nervous."