![\"Ireland's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/NVHGTVGRZRCCTPWCH6EEACCJA4.JPG\")
Ireland’s Craig Mackey in action against Austria. Photograph: Frank Uijlenbroek\/World Sport Pics <\/p>\nIreland\u2019s men line out for their first ever EuroHockey Indoor Championship top tier encounter on Thursday following a meteoric rise over the past six years.<\/p>\n
It will be a baptism of fire in Heidelberg for a side that has never played a top-10 ranked nation on such a stage, meeting 2024 bronze medallists Belgium (11.20am Irish time) before facing hosts, and reigning world champions, Germany (7.15pm).<\/p>\n
The latter tie is likely to be played in front of a sold-out crowd of 5,000 at the SNP Dome.<\/p>\n
It is a world away from the 50-odd people who witnessed Ireland earn promotion in Portugal two years ago with a 3-1 final win over Denmark in the second tier.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll also face Switzerland and Spain in Pool B, where they\u2019ll be hoping to avoid a fifth-place finish which would spell relegation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is exactly what we have worked so hard for,\u201d says coach Brinsley Powell. \u201cWe are acutely aware of our underdog status but it\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve been building towards.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a journey which began six years ago when a cohort of players and coaches pushed to get recognition from Hockey Ireland to allow them enter formal competitions on a self-funded basis.<\/p>\n
Ireland had run indoor teams in the 1980s but the squad gradually fell away without ever formally entering a EuroHockey Championship.<\/p>\n
As such, they started at the bottom of the pile in 2020. After dipping their toes in the third tier, Ireland earned promotion in 2022 went back-to-back in 2024 in winning Championship II.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s Craig Mackey in action against Austria. Photograph: Frank Uijlenbroek\/World Sport Pics <\/p>\n
Ross Canning (31), along with goalkeeper Stephen O\u2019Keeffe, has been along for each step of the journey, the former amassing 45 goals in 23 caps.<\/p>\n
Canning\u2019s father, Liam, is one of Ireland\u2019s indoor pioneers, playing to a high level before pushing Three Rock Rovers to take the boards more seriously. Under his coaching, the club has won 11 of the past 14 National Indoor Trophy titles and have a five-strong representation on the Ireland team.<\/p>\n
But the younger Canning says the international scene was not something that was in his line of sight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t understand why [indoor hockey] wasn\u2019t a thing,\u201d he admits. \u201cEven now, I don\u2019t understand why it\u2019s not more of a thing. But once the opportunity came up, I just wanted to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canning has juggled work with training camps and tournaments in Malaysia, South Africa and Denmark over the past year as the team have upped the ante.<\/p>\n
Last weekend, they travelled to Vienna for the R\u00f6hrmax Cup, where they met world number ones Austria, as well as Switzerland and the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n
It was an eye-opening experience, facing top European competition for the first time, which Powell doesn\u2019t sugar coat.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnbelievably difficult; these players have bought in like semi pros, dare I say professionals. They\u2019ve invested a lot of time and money to be where they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are playing several of the world\u2019s top 10 within eight days; we\u2019ve only ever played one of the top 10, before but it is exactly what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Powell adds: \u201cWe won the B Division two years ago in front of maybe 50 people, now it might be 5,000. It\u2019ll be difficult, of course, but we\u2019re excited, and we\u2019ll give a full account of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ireland squad: Stephen O\u2019Keeffe (Three Rock Rovers), Jakim Bernsden (Avoca), Jody Hosking (Three Rock Rovers), Ollie Kidd (Lisnagarvey), Jack Haycock (Cookstown), Harry MacMahon (Three Rock Rovers), Greg Williams (Corinthian), Scott McCabe (Queen\u2019s), Ross Canning (Three Rock Rovers), Rory Patterson (Wimbledon), James Walker (Three Rock Rovers), Craig Mackay (Corinthian).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s men line out for their first ever EuroHockey Indoor Championship top tier encounter on Thursday following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50072,37935,118790,36324,103156,61,60,2092,43,850,16959,386],"class_list":["post-232459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-championship","tag-euro","tag-eurohockey","tag-field","tag-hockey","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-men","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-woman","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}