Ireland 3 Spain 2:JIMMY COCKRAM'S double-strike in the closing six minutes against Spain in Monchengladbach yesterday helped Ireland equal their best ever finish in the European championships.
Standing in for penalty corner expert John Jermyn, the Lisnagarvey man twice picked out the bottom right corner with exquisite placement to down world number five side Spain in stunning fashion and finish the tournament in fifth place.
It was the biggest highlight in a summer full of them for the men. Having won the Champions Challenge II, Celtic Cup and the INSEP Five Nations, with wins over three sides in the world’s top 11 en route, Paul Revington’s side have reached a highest ever world ranking of 17.
In Germany, they finished one place outside the automatic Olympic places but look a real contender once the London 2012 qualifiers come around next spring, most likely to be played in Japan.
As such, Revington was keen to focus on the future, again saying this was solely a way-point with more to come from his side.
“I’m proud but we have got our sights firmly set on next year to make improvement. We’re pleased with what we have done this summer and know it will create a good foundation,” he said. “The highlight for me is we managed to get 40 players contributing in the past three months. For Irish hockey, that is going to be the way we achieve things.”
They took the hard road yesterday, twice coming from behind. All the goals in yesterday’s tie came from penalty corners as Pau Quemada broke the deadlock in the 25th minute. Ireland were slightly lacklustre in the first half but grabbed a leveller from Eugene Magee only to be behind again via the stick of Santi Freixa – a former world player of the year – who whipped home a devilish switch for 2-1.
But the Spaniards were petulant and disorganised late on, with Edi Tubau and Miguel Delas both sin-binned in the closing stages during which the greens dominated, winning several corner shots. Cockram converted two for a famous win.
On Saturday, Gene Muller’s Irish women completed the great escape with a 4-1 over Italy to finish the tournament in sixth. After three rough group games, Ireland finished strongly with three goals in 150 seconds effectively ending the tie by the 19th minute.
The side’s midfield was again key in providing the attacking thrust as centre mid Emma Clarke burst forward for the first before Nikki Symmons dived in for a second. Aine Connery swept home Emma Smyth’s cross for 3-0.
The final score set Azerbaijan the task of beating Belgium by two goals to save their A status at Ireland’s expense but the Belgians won out 3-1 to keep Ireland in the top tier. Furthermore, they made what looked an unlikely rise, after their early travails, of one space in the world rankings, overtaking Azerbaijan.
IRELAND: D Harte, J Jackson, G McCabe, R Gormley, M Watt, E Magee, M Darling, T Cockram, D Ames, P Gleghorne, C Harte Subs: C Cargo, J Brennan, J Jermyn, A McConnell, I Sloan.
SPAIN: K Cortes, S Freixa, S Enrique, B Perez Pla, A Fabregas, E Tubau, R Oliva, R Alegre, M Terraza, D Alegre, P Quemada Subs: M Delas, J Fernandez, X Lleonart, A Mir, M Salles M
Men’s EuroHockey Nations Championships Pool C results: Ireland 3 (T Cockram 2, E Magee) Spain 2 (P Quemada, S Freixa); France 2 (L Sevestre, J-B Pauchet) Russia 5 (P Golubev 2, A Platonov 2, N Yankun)
Pool C final standings: 1 Ireland 9pts (+9) 2 Spain 6pts (+5) 3 Russia 3pts (-8) 4 France 0pts (-6)
Women’s EuroHockey Nations Championships Pool C: Ireland 4 (E Clarke, N Symmons, A Connery, S McCay) Italy 1 (A Padalino); Belgium 3 (C de Vos, B Nelen, J Boon) Azerbaijan 1 (H Shukuradze) Standings: 1 Belgium 9pts (+7) 2 Ireland 6pts (+2) 3 Azerbaijan 3pts (-2) 4 Italy 0pts (-7)
