An "ecstatic" Sean Murray said Ireland can now look forward to the summer after the men's senior team booked their place at the Paris 2024 Olympics following a nail-biting 4-3 victory over South Korea in their winner-takes-all third-place play-off in Valencia.
Mark Tumilty's side could have sealed early progression to the Games by reaching the qualifying tournament final but suffered a semi-final loss to Spain on Friday, leaving them with Sunday's last chance saloon to secure a spot at the Olympics by taking the bronze medal.
Three times during the match, Ireland grabbed two-goal leads but on each occasion, Korea brought the deficit down to the absolute minimum.
But the Irish team held on and, speaking after the match, captain Murray outlined his joy and relief at their achievement.
"I'm just lost for words. Credit to Korea, they came out and it was a horribly, horribly tough game," he said.
"I've been on the other side of that before in a match where we've lost for the Olympic Games and now I get to feel - and the rest of the lads get to feel - what it's like to qualify and I can't put into words how proud I am of the team. (I'm) ecstatic."
Reaching the Olympics went some way to making up for the pain of qualification for Tokyo 2020 when they lost out to Canada on penalties.
"We believed in this group. It was kind of a rebuild after the last time," Murray added.
"(We have) a lot of young guys, guys who haven't played in Olympic qualifiers before and we knew it was going to be a tough, tough tournament.
"It comes down to the last game and with literally a few seconds to go, Korea could have levelled it up so I'm just so proud of everyone.
"All the hard work, the staff, ourselves put in, the sacrifices everyone's made to be in this position, and now (we're) looking forward to the summer."
Head coach Mark Tumilty said thoughts would soon turn to a busy build-up to the Paris Games.
"We've done it. I had a lot of belief in this group. I did think though it might comedown to this final game before the tournament," he said.
"The guys have delivered and we are on our way to the games. Very pleased for the players, we had to rebuild the squad after Vancouver and this a reward for all the work they put in and all the sacrifices they have made to get there.
"We have a very busy period, between now and the summer, in the run up to the games.
"We have the FIH Pro League, a trip to India and the games themselves in Paris. The Pro League will be 16 games against the top eight nations in the world and that in itself will be excellent preparation for the Olympic tournament in July- August."
Tumilty also took satisfaction in seeing the vision he had in getting the side qualified come to fruition.
He told RTÉ Sport: "For someone who wasn't a full-time coach in 2019 and I often made the joke when I was coaching that I would never be given the chance to coach the national team. I came in on the back of that Olympic qualifier in 2019 and we were unsucccessful. That was probably the toughest day I've ever had.
"I was determined after that to grow something and a programme that was capable of getting us to Paris and I always said that. I think we've go to that stage.
"Has it been tough at times? Yes it has. We got our rewards today."
