Ireland women's hockey captain Katie Mullan feels qualifying for the upcoming Paris 2024 Games will be "critical" if they are to maintain the momentum gained over recent years.
Sean Dancer's side are involved in the final stage of qualifiers in Valencia, Spain this month and will be in a pool with Belgium, South Korea and Ukraine, with the first match against the Belgians on Saturday, 13 January.
To qualify for the Olympics, Ireland will have to get to the semi-finals by finishing in the top two in the pool and then either reaching the final or winning the third-fourth place play-off.
Mullan, who was part of the Ireland squads that reached the 2018 World Cup final and then qualified for a maiden Olympics at the delayed Tokyo Games, sees Paris as the next logical step in the journey for this crop of players.
"We qualified for Tokyo pretty soon after the 2018 World Cup and I think this is the next big step for the Irish women's hockey team," the 29-year-old told RTÉ Sport's Clare MacNamara.
"It puts down a platform with the new players coming in, we're still at the top and we're very much fighting to be in the top ten in the world and to play in pro leagues and look to fight for medals in major competitions.
"And this next step of qualifying for Paris is critical to that. So we're excited and we're ready to go."
Getting through the qualifying tournament will be a tough gauntlet to run but Mullan is confident that the experience accumulated by the core of the squad, along with the sprinkling of emerging talent, will stand the team in good stead in their bid to book a spot at back-to-back Olympics.
"Pressure is a privilege and we've experience now of getting through the Olympic qualifiers like we did the last one, and going to the Olympic Games so we know how it all looks," she said.
"Half of the squad have that experience to share with the other half and then we have the youth that are just buzzing and so excited and a breath of fresh air, so we've a really nice combination within the squad and it's just setting us up perfectly for the tournament."
The squad fly out for Spain on Saturday and, given the looming challenge of the qualifiers, the Christmas and New Year period has been a hectic one for the 18-player squad, although Mullan and co wouldn't want it any other way given the potential prize on offer.
"We've had brilliant preparation. We were away for two weeks before Christmas, came home, spent maybe 48 hours with our families and then we've been here training since," said the Coleraine native.
"We're really well prepared and the excitement is just building nicely into the tournament so we're looking forward to getting on the plane now this weekend."
