Half-dozen for Ireland

It's not easy following the fortunes of the Irish women's hockey team, you know. Ask Kay Browne, mother of goalkeeper Tara. Five minutes into yesterday's game against Belarus in Helsinki, she could be seen heading for the cafe in the neighbouring Olympic Stadium where she sat browsing through Finnish newspapers until the end of the match.

"I couldn't take any more," said the non-Finnish speaker. "Anyway, they always do badly when I watch them."

Indeed, Belarus dominated the first five minutes of the game, when Kay was still in her seat. Once she left, Ireland scored six goals, conceded just one, played some superb hockey and secured their place in the 1999 European Nations' Cup Finals in Germany. "I'll keep away in future," she vowed.

"We should have done this yesterday, but today we were ready, we were really good - and we are really good, that was the real Ireland today," said a relieved and delighted Irish coach, Riet Kuper, after the game.

After weathering that spell of early Belarus pressure, Ireland took complete control of the game, much as they had done against the Czech Republic the day before, only this time they converted their chances.

Kim Mills settled Irish nerves with a goal in the 13th minute, in a game they had to win to qualify for the European finals. Ten minutes later, Arlene Thompson, winning her 50th cap, doubled the lead from a short corner. Five minutes before the break, Jenny Burke made it 3-0 with a delightful lift over the Belarus goalkeeper, who was still on the ground after saving a short corner strike from Sarah Kelleher.

Belarus pulled a goal back on the stroke of half time, from their first short corner of the match, but their hopes of narrowing the gap were hardly helped by having four players "sin-binned" for sticktackles, dissent, and tackling that would impress Keith Wood.

Kelleher and Thompson made it 5-1 with two more short corner strikes.

When Ireland were awarded another stroke, in added time, Logue stepped up and fired high into the roof of the net.