No shelter for Danny's girls

Wednesday afternoon and it was bucketing down with rain at the Rott Weiss hockey club in Cologne. Not your run-of-the-mill average sized raindrops either, but big, heavy globs that went "gadunk" when they landed on your head.

I waded over to the German Hockey Federation stall to buy the biggest umbrella they could offer me. The nice young attendant heard the squelches coming. "Zu spat", he chuckled.

The umbrella cost me £12, not much less than the as yet unopened suntan lotion I brought with me.

I took my place in the uncovered stand behind the Ukraine's 6ft 3in sweeper. When she opened her umbrella it made mine look like one of the ones you get in a cocktail glass. There would have been an eclipse of the sun where I was sitting, if there had been any sun. I moved up five seats but I still couldn't see past her. She had bleached blonde hair, narrow eyes and was built like Darth Vader, so I said nothing. National anthem time. It's just a personal opinion, but I have always felt that the prospects of the Irish national hockey team are hampered more by them having to listen to Danny Boy before their matches than anything to do with (a) a lack of funding, (b) inferior skills and technique and (c) the fact that every other hockey-playing nation on the earth is getting better.

Danny Boy is a tune you sing when you are sodden in whiskey, feeling melancholy and have just had your farm re-possessed by the bailiffs. It is not a tune to rouse the troops and send them in to battle baying for blood. Most of the players look depressed, weary and tearful when the match starts and by the time they compose themselves they're 2-0 down. Amhrain na bhFiann is, of course, not considered an option for an all-Ireland team but we can do better than Danny Boy. How about Do you want your auld lobby washed down, Con Shine? I'm not sure why - it might have been the rain - but I thought of that seminal chart topper on Wednesday and reckoned it would have been just right. It'd be worth a goal, at least.

But the pipes have been playing for young Danny this week in Cologne and, as it has turned out, the tune has matched the mood of the Irish camp. Glum. Losing 3-2 to the Ukraine, the assumed "whipping girls" of the pool, on Tuesday set the scene.

There is one astro-turf pitch in the Ukraine. One. They have just 600 players to choose from (men and women - Ireland has 15,000) and only eight clubs (the entire squad at this tournament is drawn from just two clubs). They couldn't afford to travel to play any internationals in the build-up to Cologne so they played against each other at home. They were recently adopted by the FIH (International Hockey Federation) as one of two "developing countries", along with Uganda, given funds to buy equipment and sent top international coaches to advise their own coaches. The scheme has paid off handsomely - after their victory over Ireland they performed admirably against the mighty Germany, losing 4-1 (three of Germany's goals came from penalty strokes) but impressing everyone with their skills and flair.

Lithuania are even worse off than the Ukraine. They don't have a single astro-turf pitch to play on - the nearest one is in Poznan in Poland, were they travel to get practice. They were given $100,000 by the FIH to equip themselves with sticks and gear - on Thursday they beat France 3-1. France and Ireland are now ruing the FIH's determination to popularise hockey all over the globe. When the Ukrainian sweeper stood up at the end of the Ireland v England match she tilted her umbrella backwards and a Niagra-type avalanche of water found its way on to my lap. The inky details of Ireland's 5-0 humiliation dripped from my notebook onto the ground. Nobody said there'd be days like these.

"There's a flight leaving for Dublin in two hours," giggled the English hockey journalist back in the press centre. "What's the latest from the Test match?" I replied. "Touche," he said. "And to think you invented the game, dear, oh dear, oh dear," I winked. "Looking forward to playing Germany on Saturday," he winked back. Truce - we agreed to share the points. Ireland's first point of the tournament. It can only get better. Can't it?