Women's Hockey: On the day the Black Caps, aka the New Zealand cricket team, were putting South Africa to the sword in the second Test at Eden Park, the Black Sticks, as their women's hockey counterparts are known, were doing likewise to Ireland at the Olympic Qualifying tournament, in which they defeated Riet Kuper's side 5-1 at the nearby Lloyd Elsmore Park.

It had all started so well for one Irish player in particular, namely Eimear Cregan, who was presented with a bunch of flowers by Irish Hockey Association president-elect Grace Redmond before the match to mark her 50th senior international appearance.

However, things went downhill fast for the University of Limerick striker and her team mates, who, on their own admission, were out of sorts after opening their campaign with what is likely to be a crucial 1-0 win over old foes Ukraine on Friday - Ireland's hopes of securing the top-five finish that would take them to Athens are still intact.

"I was delighted before the game and if someone had said to me three years ago that I would have won 50 caps at the age of just 22 I would have laughed at them. But I couldn't have done it without the support of my family. It's great that my mum (Therese) and dad (Conor) are here and it's a belated anniversary present for them because they were married 30 years ago last Thursday," said Cregan.

Kuper expressed disappointment at her players' performance but the consensus was that expectations may have been too high going into the match. The Black Sticks were, to be honest, in a different class, especially in their speed and accuracy of passing and their clinical penalty-corner routine, which yielded three goals from seven attempts.

"I expected us to cause them more problems but maybe it was down to what was a big occasion. We prepared well enough but our main players didn't have the chance to perform as well as they can and we made too many mistakes due to their pressing tactics in midfield," said Kuper.

The clocks went back in New Zealand at the weekend and Ireland midfielder Jenny Burke felt the general level of performance had entered a time warp.

"After doing so well in Argentina and Spain in the build-up we went back a bit on Saturday. Maybe we were naive in hoping for a positive result against them. But hopefully we can regroup and replicate our displays there during the rest of the tournament," she said.

Yesterday the squad watched their next two opponents in action as Germany beat Britain 2-1. Kuper had mixed feelings about the outcome: "A draw would probably have suited us better but at least it now means Britain will have to go all out to beat Ukraine next and that's probably no bad thing. We will go full throttle against Germany and try to get a result."

After the New Zealand game the David Bowie classic (We can be) Heroes boomed over the PA. They still can be. Things aren't all black for the Irish.