Agonising failure for Ireland

Men's Hockey:Following their exit on Saturday from contention for a place in the Beijing Olympic Games this summer, Ireland have been consigned to Division Two of European hockey for the foreseeable future.

While the team were able to rise to the occasion by beating a side, Argentina, ranked seventh in the world and 12 places above them, it was not enough to make the final and play-off for the one Olympic place on offer.

That Ireland beat Argentina 1-0 showed this team had character but the end result is that Ireland's poor performance in the last European Championships, combined with some bad luck in Auckland, puts them back where they were several years ago.

With a number of players in their late 20s or early 30s, including the peerless captain Paddy Brown, Ireland will have to start a rebuilding process for the next significant event, which will take place in 2009.

The Olympic Games dominates this year and Ireland, who have never fielded a hockey side in the Games since independence (although several Irish players have won Olympic medals with Britain) are left wondering where their future lies.

The team suffered defections before the qualifiers even began with pivotal players like Stephen Butler and Graham Shaw having to take time out because of other personal commitments, notably their careers. The demand for time from the players going into such a highly-geared event had already begun to show cracks.

Ireland must now sit down and decide how they are going to realistically manage players who are expected to compete against full-time teams but are so evidently not full-time themselves. In team events at least 25 people need to be committed to the cause.

The stress and pressure on the players to hold down jobs and train professionally is at a breaking point and given that Ireland are so close to achieving something, although not yet with the desired consistency, a further improvement in how players are managed is required.

On Saturday Argentina had the better of the first-half action but the teams remained scoreless at the interval.

Ireland eventually made their breakthrough 18 minutes into the second half when the free- scoring Mark Gleghorne flicked goalwards from a penalty corner and the rebound was finished into the Argentinian net by Pembroke's Ronan Gormley.

Argentina were content to focus on defence in the final stages off the match, to deny Ireland the extra goal they needed to overtake them on goal difference and that is the way it ended. A glorious defeat of sorts and a lot of pride - but again falling short.