Ireland senior men's head coach Mark Tumilty has said that Sunday’s EuroHockey Championship II tie in Poland is an opportunity to finally get November 2019’s ill-fated Olympic qualifier against Canada out of their system.
The former Banbridge player was temporarily in charge in Vancouver when Ireland thought they had booked a place at the Tokyo Games only for the video umpire to intervene with a second remaining after a referral request. A penalty stroke was awarded to Canada that allowed them to level the aggregate score and the hosts went on to win the shoot-out to break Irish hearts.
Tumilty was handed the job on a more long-term basis last October and he is excited to hit the turf again on Sunday night with a first capped fixture since that Canada loss.
"With Covid, it has been a strange 16 to 18 months but very enjoyable and that’s down to the players," he said.
"To get guys capped, to get guys into competitive international hockey is why we have trained and worked so hard. It’s been a long time coming around and obviously we have got the first chance to get out there since those Canada games. I’d like to get that out the road and move on."
The Green Machine, with a new look panel featuring six new players, face hosts Poland at 7pm Irish time on day one of the EuroHockey Championship II in Gniezno.
Among them is Kevin O'Dea who was called into the main panel earlier this week as Jonny Lynch had to step out at short notice. It means that the Cork man, who completed his Leaving Cert earlier this summer, will become the first Munster player to make his debut since Julian Dale in 2016.
He is joined in the line-up by fellow uncapped players James Milliken, Kyle Marshall, Ben Nelson, Ian Stewart and Mark McNellis.
This summer, Ireland have won two uncapped series against Scotland and also have beaten a Great Britain development panel four times.
The first target at this EuroHockey event is to secure a top-five finish from the eight-team competition, which would bring with it a spot at October’s World Cup qualifiers.
A strong performance will also boost world ranking points and offer a better draw for those qualifiers and next summer’s European Championship qualifiers.
But while Ireland are the highest ranked side in Poland at 14th in the world, that status is likely to count for little with very few of the contenders in Poland playing many games in the Covid-19 environment.
"Even from our own performances, we don’t have a lot of video so it is hard to evaluate our own level," Tumilty continued.
"Younger players coming into these tournaments, some will excel, some may struggle but we accept that and it is all part of what this group has to go through.
"Poland will be in the same bracket, Scotland have new faces. In general, all the teams have different faces and not many will have played many games in the last two years."
After the Polish game, Ireland will meet Italy and then Croatia in the first ever meeting between the sides. Austria, Scotland, Switzerland and Ukraine await in the classification matches.
"We have been lucky enough to get some footage of the Polish games. No doubt it will be a difficult opening game. I’ve coached against their club sides before and they always have good basics," said Tumilty.
"Italy is a bit of an unknown; they had a very good World League out in Malaysia, beating China and unfortunate to go out against Canada. Croatia are an unknown.
"Most of all, I would be encouraging us to play. We need to go away from the belief simply in hard work and defence. For me, that should be a given. I would like us to play more through the midfield, a shape to allow us to express ourselves and play a more attacking style.
"That’s how I like to play and hopefully people have seen that in teams I have been involved with before. It will take time to get it fully embedded but hopefully we see it over the longer term."
Ireland squad: Jamie Carr, James Milliken, Lee Cole, Kyle Marshall, Tim Cross, Mark McNellis, Peter McKibbin, Luke Madeley, Sean Murray, Shane O’Donoghue, Michael Robson, Kevin O'Dea, Daragh Walsh, Jeremy Duncan, Ben Walker, Ben Nelson, Ian Stewart, Johnny McKee. Travelling reserves: Neal Glassey, Sam Hyland.
