Irish Hockey

After a win against Ukraine and a defeat against New Zealand, the Ireland women's hockey team are third in their Olympic qualifying pool. The largely inexperienced Irish outfit beat the fancied Ukrainian selection by just one goal, holding their opponents scoreless to get off to a perfect start in Pool A of the qualifiers. The Irish need to finish in the top two to automatically secure a place for Athens while third or fourth place would secure them a playoff position. But the magnitude of their task was brought home by a 5-1 thumping against New Zealand late last night.

Lizzy Igasan and Kayla Sharland put host nation New Zealand 2-0 up inside 29 minutes but Belfast Harlequins' Jenny McDonough pulled one back two minutes after half-time. However, Jamiee Provan went straight down the other end and scored another for New Zealand and further goals from Provan and Niniwa Roberts-Lang sealed Ireland's fate. Ireland coach Riet Kuper said: "It was very well played by New Zealand but I was quite disappointed with our own performance. I thought we could trouble them more than we did."

Filed by Brendan Cole

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