Ireland 11-0 Singapore
After a disappointing loss to Egypt on Sunday the Irish men’s squad picked themselves up to demolish Singapore 11-0 in their third match of the FIH Series Finals on Tuesday.
Ireland's all-time leading goal scorer Shane O’Donoghue, 26, scored a hat-trick by the third quarter to surpass the 100 international goal mark, the first Irish hockey player to do so.
It means Ireland top Pool A and move straight to the semi-final stage on Saturday against the winner of Thursday's crossover match between France and Scotland.
A top two finish at this tournament will see Ireland advance to a two-legged Olympic qualifier play-off tie in the autumn.
O’Donoghue put Ireland on the scoreboard within the opening minute from a penalty corner.
The Irishmen dominated possession early on with goals from Conor Harte and Matthew Nelson making it 3-0 before the first-quarter whistle blew.
The goals kept coming in quarter two with Stephen Cole and then Ben Walker making it 5-0.
Five more goals came in the third quarter as the Green Machine ran riot.
O’Donoghue secured his hat-trick and then reached 101 international goals with another effort.
Both Cole and Harte managed to put away their second goals of the match, while Luke Madeley tucked home a drag flick from a penalty corner.
In the final minute of the game Lee Cole slammed home another to make 11-0.
"We knew we needed to score at least four goals today to top the table. We scored 11 which is a good result," said head coach Alexander Cox afterwards.
"After the big disappointment of losing to Egypt we needed to show ourselves that we are capable of reaching the qualifier play-offs for Tokyo. We did that today. We did so because we were focused from the start and stayed focused until the end."
Ireland: D Harte, J Jackson, J Bell, E Magee, S O’Donoghue, S Murray, B walker, D Walsh, C Harte, L Cole, S Cole
Subs: M Bell, L Madeley, N Glassey, M Robson, P Gleghorne
Singapore: B Asali, E Marican, J Grewal, D Vijayan, S Noor, A Zul’kepli, F Johari, M Cheong, B Kahar, N Ng, G Sandran,
Subs: W X Wee, A Ibrahim, N Kumar, Z Zulkarnan, H Vijayan, N Teo, S Muhammad