Their destiny awaits
Lena’s Ireland set for quarter-final
IRELAND’S women hockey team will contest a World Cup quarter-final tomorow (Thursday, August 2) after sensationally topping their group in England.
Glenealy’s Lena Tice and her team-mates - ranked 16th in the world - came up against hosts England (second in the world), USA (seventh in the world) and India (10th in the world) and defied the odds as they clinched top spot and a direct route to the last eight.
Tice began all three matches from the bench. On July 21st, Ireland got their campaign off to a dream start as they shocked USA 1-3.
They followed this up with another outstanding result - a tense 0-1 success - over India on July 26th and they knew at that stage that they had already secured top spot with England only able to draw their two opening meetings.
Ireland subsequently went into Sunday’s showdown against England with nothing at stake but despite a superb defensive showing, the second best team in the world did grab a fourth quarter winner to secure a vital play-off place.
Ireland now await the victor of yesterday evening’s play-off between India and Italy (17th in the world).
This result was unavailable at the time of going to print.
Should Ireland continue their wonderful journey and pick up another win tomorrow, their semi-final opponent would be Germany (sixth in the world), Spain (11th) or Belgium (13th).