Elite make steady progress

HOCKEY: It was, perhaps, the most irritating pop tune of all time, its incessantly repeated refrain of "da ba dee, da ba dee, da da, da da ba dee" leaving those subjected to it quickly losing the will to live.

Eiffel 65 were the offenders, the song was 'Blue', as was the crowd watching Holland's 15-0 defeat of Belgium in the 1999 European Championships. Not least because every time the ball hit the Belgian back-board "da ba dee, da ba dee" roared from the stadium speakers. Fifteen times.

Not long after the European Hockey Federation began to think about turning the tournament in to a more elitist affair, reducing the line-up from 12 to eight, eliminating Europe's also-rans from the event so that there would be no embarrassing repeats of that Holland v Belgium encounter. Some suspected that those 15 airings of "da ba dee, da ba dee" made the EHF's mind up: enough was enough.

So these European Championships in Dublin are the first to feature an A division made up of just eight teams. Already, though, there would appear to be an elite within the elite, with Germany and England already comfortably through to the semi-finals, after just two pool games, and Holland, the defending champions, likely to join them this evening after playing France.

England beat Scotland 4-1 yesterday, to add to their 4-0 defeat of the Ukraine on Sunday, while Fanny Rinne scored the first hat-trick of the tournament in Germany's 4-0 victory over Ukraine, leaving the Olympic champions with a record of played two, won two, scored 12 (eight against Scotland), conceded none.

England and Germany meet tomorrow, in the final Pool B game, the considerable prize for the group toppers the likely avoidance of Holland in the semi-finals.

The last time Germany met the Dutch, the world number ones, they beat them in the Olympic final, a result from which Holland are still smarting. Having beaten the Germans 4-1 in an earlier pool meeting in Athens the Dutch had the air of a team who believed they only had to turn up to collect gold; instead it was Germany who won their first ever Olympic title. At whatever stage they meet it should be a game to savour.