Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt, and should that be the case at London’s Lee Valley Arena tomorrow afternoon, the Hockey World Cup semi-final encounter between Ireland and Spain should be a feisty affair.
Far from what was predicted for this stage of the tournament - many perceived stronger nations have bowed out in the battle to reach the final four – yet it has happened, as Ireland and Spain face off for a much-coveted place in the final of the tournament.
Familiar foes indeed, Ireland and Spain know each other’s game inside out, having faced each other on numerous occasions whether in test series, or more recently in the European Championships.
Spain got the better of Ireland in that particular affair, running out 7-2 winners, but that does not tell the whole story and Ireland manager Graham Shaw believes that there is a win in this Irish team, and his side will have no fear heading into tomorrow’s decider.
"We have played each other a lot over the past four years and we would regularly beat each other," explained Shaw, speaking on Morning Ireland.
"But there is no real pressure in those games as they are usually just test series or we’d go away to a camp and play against them.
"So when you come into a tournament environment, there is a big difference.
"Last time we played them at the Europeans last year, they beat us 7-2. We had come off the back of our World Cup qualifier in Johannesburg and so we were very fatigued."
Shaw knows this Spanish side inside out, and expects that his counterparts are equally informed of the Irish strengths and weaknesses, and while the manager was not giving his game plan away, he emphasised the importance of preparation going into the game, while also focusing on the recovery of Thursday’s exertions where Ireland beat India in the quarter-finals.
"They are a very strong side, they have a lot of quality in their side, but on our day we can beat them, and they can beat us, we both know that.
"We both won’t fear each other going into the game, and it will be a bit of a strange one that we ended up playing these as we have both been building our programmes at the same time and the same age profile for a number of years and we know each other so well.
"It is going to make for an interesting game and it will be a case of who performs on the day, but there is definitely a win in it so we’re just going to have to prepare as well as we possibly can, try to recover as well as we possibly can and then go again tomorrow."
While the tournament takes place in the English capital, Shaw admitted that the tournament has felt like a home event, such has been the support for the Green Army thus far.
And Shaw is hoping that the support will intensify for the semis and perhaps beyond as tickets become available from those bigger nations who had presumed participation.
"There are a lot of big nations out and a lot of big nations, I’d imagine, anticipated being in the semi-finals, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of tickets become available today.
"I’m hoping that tickets do become available because they have been fantastic so far over here, we really feel like we are playing at home and it would be great if we could get a huge crowd out for Saturday afternoon."
Looking ahead to Saturday’s semi-final, and should the last few games give any indication of what might be in store tomorrow, chances are that it will be a tight game with a very strong chance of another penalty shoot-out.
And should that be the case, Shaw feels that Ireland really have an ace in the pack with goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran proving virtually impenetrable in such scenarios.
While Chloe Watkins enjoyed the glory of securing the winning goal in the quarter-final showdown with India, McFerran’s prowess in such scenarios is what really gave Ireland the belief to eliminate a strong India side.
"Shes exceptional at these ‘one v ones’, she’s incredibly hard to beat," said Shaw.
"We train against her all the time and I watch our girls go up against her and they do find it very difficult to score against her.
"Her record would be very strong against every nation that we have come up against.
"We felt if we could score two, it would take some real impressive ‘one v ones’ to beat her, so once the first one went in and we took the lead, then we really felt confident that we could go and win it."
Watch live coverage of the Ireland's Hockey Wold Cup semi-final with Spain on RTÉ2 on Saturday from 1.45
