World Cup heroes have two reasons to celebrate
TWO of Ireland’s World Cup stars enjoyed a double celebration yesterday as Pegasus and Belfast Harlequins booked their place in the Boxing Day Denman Ulster Shield final.
Pegasus crushed Ards 7-2 in the first semi-final at Stormont and Belfast Harlequins then defeated Ulster Elks 2-1 as Ireland silver medallists Shirley McCay and Lizzie Colvin’s teams progressed.
Quins were without their other World Cup player, Zoe Wilson, who missed the game with a hamstring injury.
The games came the day after Ireland picked up the team of the year accolade at the RTE Sports awards night in Dublin while Graham Shaw collected the manager of the year prize.
McCay, who scored two of the Pegasus goals in the Shield semi, was delighted and pleasantly surprised at the national team’s double success at the RTE bash.
Ireland and Shaw beat off stiff competition to take the honours, with the Ireland rugby team, who beat the All Blacks for the first time on home soil and their head coach Joe Schmidt many people’s favourites to pip hockey for the awards.
McCay said: “It was a fantastic achievement in the circumstances for both the team and Graham to finish ahead of the rugby lads in both categories.
“We also beat Dublin’s gaelic footballers, who won their fourth all-Ireland in a row, the Limerick hurlers who also won their final after a long gap, and those teams would have had a lot of support from the public vote.
“But I think it says a lot for the power of social media and all the girls and the hockey family in general worked very hard to encourage people to vote for the team.
“I also suppose the fact we went into the World Cup as the second lowest-ranked team and ended up finishing second helped persuade people that we deserved to win the award.
“It’s a great honour and we are also delighted for Graham, who, I know, will be immensely proud to have picked up his award for all his hard work in the build up to London.”
Shaw said: “This is a huge moment for our sport. We’ve got a special group of people involved in the team who train really hard and work really hard for each other.
“This was our first World Cup as a group and to show the level of composure and togetherness that the team did is something of which I’m very proud.”
Ireland captain Katie Mullan, one of six Ulster women in the squad, collected the trophy on behalf of the team.
She added: “It’s a huge honour to be standings here with this award. The entire nation got behind us over the summer and they’ve done the same tonight and we’re so grateful for their support.”
Next up for Ireland is a trip to Chile next month ahead of their Olympic qualifying bid but for McCay, Colvin and Wilson, first up is the Shield final on Boxing Day at Lisnagarvey.
Ards were no match for Pegasus in the first semi and there was no way back after they made a dreadful start, conceding five goals in the opening 23 minutes.
Lucy McKee, McCay, Kate Gourley (2) and Ruth Maguire were on target before Caroline Adams pulled one back.
Francesca Brown made it 5-2 in the 43rd minute but McCay and Taite Doherty replied to seal an emphatic Pegasus victory.
The second semi-final was a much closer contest as Elks, with Ireland star Megan Frazer pulling the strings, gave as good as they got after trailing to a seventh minute Jenna Watt goal.
Frazer levelled from a penalty corner in the 31st minute but Quins made it an all EY Irish Hockey League final as Abigail Edwards netted the winner from a set-piece with 16 minutes left.
Only one Senior One game survived Saturday’s rain with Priorians winning 5-2 at Coleraine. Denman Ulster Shield semi-finals: Pegasus 7 (L McKee, S McCay 2, K Gourley 2, R Maguire, T Doherty) Ards 2 (C Adams, F Brown); Belfast Harlequins 2 (J Watt, A Edwards) Ulster Elks 1 (M Frazer)
Senior One: Coleraine 2 (K Caithness, C Lyttle) Priorians 5 (E Allen, J Kennedy 2, E Goodman) HE may not feel it is the season to be jolly but coach Adrian Fulton feels that Christmas has come at just the right time after his Belfast Star suffered back-toback defeats in the All Ireland Superleague.
Having lost at home to Maree the previous weekend, a weakened Star went down 80-67 away to Cork side Demons. The defeat means they have gone from clear leaders to being joint top with Templeogue and Killester.
Coincidentally, when Star return to action next month they meet Killester and Templeogue in a massive double header weekend, before heading to the National Cup semi-final.
Clearly Star have taken a little dip over the past fortnight and coach Fulton has to address why, otherwise there may be a danger of such a promising season falling apart. Certainly professionals Mike Davis, Mark Berlic, Mike Thiep and Sergio Vidal (right ) have to examine the key role they must play in order to keep Star on course for a shot at silverware.
Coach Fulton said: “We’ve got until January 5 until the big double header against Killester and then Templeogue, and with all three teams on the same points it is clearly going to be a very important weekend in the season. So with that it mind I think this break has come at just the right time.
“I was disappointed with the loss to Neptune, but not as much as the defeat to Maree the week before. We had travelled without a few players which hurt us and in particular we have been hurt by having to play without our two internationals Aidan and Conor Quinn due to injury.
“I am hopeful that they can target returning to the squad for the double header. Having that quality would be a huge boost.
“But, at the same time we have to learn from the two defeats and improve. I felt we made too many poor decisions.”
Fulton also believes his men can give themselves more options when it comes to offence.
“I think we have been a little one-dimensional and static so that needs to be addressed. I also have to say that our American Mike Davis has been getting some rough treatment lately.
“But, this is not a time to be negative. We’re joint top of the league and in the semi-finals of the cup and if someone had offered me that at the start of the season I would have grabbed it.”