Ireland hockey dream is still in sight after Italy win

Having lost the initial pool game to hosts Spain over the weekend, Ireland kept alive hopes of semi-final progress thanks to goals in Valencia by captain Katie Mullan and Naomi Carroll.

Italy reduced the gap but Ireland worked hard to protect the lead and now tackle Korea on Thursday aware victory would seal a last-four place for Sean Dancer’s squad – with a spot in the 2023 FIH Pro League the reward for the overall tournament winners.

Mullan picked up the ‘Player of the Match’ award.

“It’s such a good team performance from us,” she said. “We had such great control for the majority of the game...we dominated, we were clinical, and huge credit to the girls.

"We had a tough game yesterday (v Spain) and we came away and learned a few really valuable lessons last night, and I think you’ve seen them put into practice today.”

Dancer celebrated Roisin Upton reaching her century cap.

“Roisin is one of our key players and I’m so pleased for her,” said Dancer. “What a wonderful milestone and I hope she has a lot more.

"Katie was a really strong performer in the centre of the field and she held onto the ball well and controlled things, but the whole team did their job and that’s probably the key thing, everybody is doing their role.

“We scored two field goals today which is something we have worked hard at.

"The game was very close...you’re always happy when you win, that’s what our job is about, high performance is all about getting results.

"The important thing for us is that it keeps us moving forward in the tournament. “We’re now on three points and it gives us a good opportunity against Korea to get a result and then into the semi-finals.”

Upton highlighted the collective drive.

“We really wanted to bounce back after yesterday,” she said. “We thought we performed well, we just needed to get a good result today to set us up for a final game against Korea.

"We didn’t make too many changes, we just talked about how we could do things a little bit better.”