Ireland 2-2 Korea
Ireland kept their cool in the closing moments of their final pool match of the Women's FIH Hockey Nations Cup in Valencia to earn a draw against Korea and book their spot in the semi-finals on Friday.
Second-half goals from Sarah Hawkshaw and Katie Mullan put Ireland in control, only for Korea to respond with two goal in the last five minutes.
Ireland had dominated from the pushback, with Korea’s main threat being their counterattack.
The Girls in Green were skilful up front, winning penalty corners with regularity. They went through their routine but with limited effectiveness, Korea defending an array of strikes, drag flicks and deflections in the seven Ireland corners won in the first half.
Korea struggled to get the ball out of defence in the second half as Ireland hunted in the press, winning plenty of ball in the attacking third.
Mullan led the charge up front while Michelle Carey and Sarah Torrans made good headway wide on the right of the pitch, the final pass just eluding the Irish.
Defensive Irish players began to press forward, with Hannah McLoughlin and Ellen Curran making probing runs out of the defending line and creating problems for Korea.
It took nine penalty corners for Ireland to get on the scoreboard.
Roisin Upton drag-flicked the initial shot that was saved by goalkeeper Lee, then Curran saw her shot smothered and kicked up towards Hawkshaw on the post, who tracked it and batted it goalward to put Ireland in front.
Sean Dancer’s charges continued to pile on the pressure in the last quarter and a mistake from Lee in goal, who had done so much up to that point to keep her team in the tie, led to her team conceding their second.
A loose ball made it through to the keeper, who cleared straight into the path of the oncoming player of the match Mullan. Lee looked to correct her mistake by coming at Mullan who spotted her chance, sliding the ball past the keeper on her near post.
Korea continued to look for goals, though, and they found some joy late on when they won a penalty corner with four minutes left on the clock. Their drag flick found the leg of Elena Tice on the line, which led to a penalty stroke. Hyejin Cho sent it high to the left to give her team a glimmer of hope.
Korea duly went straight back down the pitch after the Ireland pass back to win another corner and this time Sujin An’s drag flick found the arm of Upton - the deflection sending it into the Ireland goal with two minutes on the clock and made the scores level.
If there were nerves within the Ireland team, however, they were not evident as they expertly ran down the clock, McLoughlin drawing foul after foul and winning multiple frees to smother any chance of a third and winning goal for Korea.
The result means Ireland finished second in Pool A and they will face the winners of Pool B in the second of the two semi-finals at 2.45 pm on Friday.
The tournament winner will assure themselves of a spot in the 2023 FIH Pro League.
