Ireland’s Katie Mullan attempts to break through the English defence. Photo: Frank Uijlenbroek
The Ireland Women’s Hockey team came up short against England in their final FIH Hockey Pro League outing in Dublin, losing 2-1.
England led early on, before adding a second in the final quarter. Caoimhe Perdue pulled a goal back from a penalty corner and Ireland pushed until the final whistle but couldn’t find a way to breach the English defence.
England began brightly, with Tessa Howard finding the back of the net in the fourth minute to put her side ahead. They continued to dominate possession for the remainder of the half, with Ireland’s efforts to get meaningful shots on goal coming up short.
England thought they had their second just before half-time from a penalty corner, but Ireland used their referral well, with the video umpire chalking the goal off.
Ireland, however, came into their own in the second half, finding ways to break down the English press. But the visitors proved clinical, scoring through Holly Hunt to double their advantage.
Ireland’s Caoimhe Perdue pulled a goal back to set up a thrilling finish, finding the back of the net from a penalty corner with seven minutes remaining. But Ireland couldn’t break down the English resilience, and the visitors held out to get their first win of the campaign.
“Probably disappointed with the result in the end but over the course of the week really happy with the performances and one of the things we’ve talked about a lot was consistency and I think we had that over the four games against teams ranked much higher than us,” said Irish coach Gareth Grundie.
“We were in each game getting into the final minutes so that will certainly give us a lot of confidence going forward and obviously the result against England on Thursday was points on the board and we’ll take that confidence going to Australia in February.”
Ireland face a big six months, with the next round of the Pro League in Hobart at the start of February and the World Cup qualifiers in Chile at the end of the same month.