Ireland 1-4 England
The Irish women's hockey team suffered a 4-1 defeat at the hands of World No. 2 England in their opening game at the 2017 EuroHockey Championships in Amsterdam.
The highly rated England side pressed high up the pitch in the early stages and the tactic paid off on the fifth minute with Laura Unsworth hitting the opening goal.
Unsworth charged along the baseline and her shot took an unlucky deflection off Shirley McCay to sneak past Grace O’Flanagan.
ENG 1-0 IRL Unsworth opens her account with early deflection #EHC2017 pic.twitter.com/Lk5pPSEPfi
— EuroHockey (@eurohockeyorg) August 19, 2017
The two sides quickly exchanged further penalty corners with Hinch saving Roisin Upton’s drag flick. Alex Danson was a constant attacking threat for the English and drew a phenomenal glove save from Grace O’Flanagan.
The game continued at break-neck speed as Ireland began to grow into the encounter against the defending European Champions.
Upton intercepted a loose ball and the slip to Anna O’Flanagan was perfectly weighted to allow her to find Katie Mullan in the circle but the English defence were on her before she could execute her reverse shot.
Nicci Daly’s quick hands and skills were on display all day and she found Deidre Duke down the left side who fired a reverse across goal, just spinning past the diving Mullan on the cusp of half time.
The opening minutes of the second half looked promising for the Irish as Mullan saw her volley blaze just past Hinch’s goal but within minutes England had another PC.
Ellie Watton got down in front of O’Flanagan to deflect in the straight shot from the top. But minutes later the Green Army had a PC of their own, a simple routine saw Elena Tice sweep the ball from the top and into the bottom corner to make it 2-1 in the 42nd minute.
ENG 2-1 IRL Elena Tice claws one back for Ireland #EHC2017 pic.twitter.com/9Ik6WycAo5
— EuroHockey (@eurohockeyorg) August 19, 2017
However, England showed their experience and Olympic gold medallist Sophie Bray appeared out of nowhere in the circle to tap in a pinpoint pass. Ireland couldn’t get their hands on the ball for a period as England racked up more corners but superb defending saw Tice make a double save and Hannah Matthews clear a shot off the line.
The final goal came from Danson as she was quickest to the rebound from O’Flanagan’s initial save.
Commenting after the match, head coach Graham Shaw said "We didn’t start the way we would like, we needed a very good start where we could put them under a bit of pressure. But they’re a very good outfit with a lot of Olympic gold medallists in that team and showed why they’re so highly ranked in the world.
FT:Eng 4-1 @IreWomenHockey.World no.2 looking very sharp but plenty of positives to build on for Irl. Next game 12:15pm tomorrow vs Scotland pic.twitter.com/7mLK2peesd
— Irish Hockey (@irishhockey) August 19, 2017
We’ll learn from the mistakes we made today, tomorrow is a huge game and we’ll try put in a performance we can be proud of".
The Green Army are next in action tomorrow (August 20th) against Scotland at 12:15pm (Irish time).
The Ireland men’s hockey team begin their campaign tomorrow (2:30pm Irish time) against Germany
Ireland: G O’Flanagan, Y O’Byrne, K Mullan (Captain), S McCay, E Tice, R Upton, C Watkins, N Daly, A O’Flanagan, Z Wilson, D Duke
Subs: C Cassin, N Evans, E Beatty, G Pinder, S Loughran, H Matthews, A Meeke
England: M Hinch, L Unsworth, A Toman, H Martin, S Townsend, A Danson (Captain), G Ansley, S Bray, H Webb, S McCallin, L Owsley
Subs: Z Shipperley, S Haycroft, E Rayer, E Defroand, E Watton, A Tennant, J Hunter
