THE 18-man Ireland hockey panel to go to Barcelona for warm weather training from January 29th to February 2nd in preparation for the World Cup second qualifying tournament in Kuala Lumpur from March 4th to the 15th includes four players who did not take part in the preliminaries in Cagliari in October.

Uncapped goalkeeper Nigel Henderson takes over from Peter Darley, who is out through illness, and Mark Tumilty comes in for Robbie Taylor, who is unavailable because of work commitments. Utility figure JP Murphy and young striker Mark Irwin are also included. Paul Hollway was not considered as he has not fully recovered from injury to allow full fitness to be attained.

Two practice matches have been arranged against the Spanish national squad and there will also be a game against leading club side Egarra Terrassa. There will a further training trip to Holland before the final 16 is named for the Malaysian assignment.