Ireland enter crucial phase as Olympics loom

MEN'S HOCKEY:WITH LEAGUE champions Pembroke and cup winners Glenanne both looking forward to European club competition next season, the summer holds few significant fixtures for the Irish team. Yet the next two years could be the most important in the game's history.

The challenge for men’s national coach Paul Revington, who took the South African team to the Athens Games in 2004, where they finished 10th, will be to get his Irish team to the London Olympics in 2012.

Ireland will travel to Le Touquet in France at the end of June where they will meet Scotland, Wales and France in the Celtic Cup tournament, and they will play Test matches as part of their training camps.

But with the European Championships next summer in Monchengladbach, Germany, and three International Hockey Federation qualifying tournaments scheduled for early in 2012 (the Irish team will play in one of them), Ireland will have two chances of booking tickets to the London Games.

At this point the Olympic qualifying event has not been allocated to any country, but has been scheduled for March 2012. Three events are being staged with just one team to qualify from each competition.

The European Championships qualifying route is equally fraught for Ireland, although, on the face of it, it might be the less difficult path.

Competing with Belgium, England, Spain, France, Germany, Holland and Russia, Ireland needs to finish among the top four teams to qualify for the Olympics.

The current situation is that the European Champions plus three teams get to the Olympics – unless the champions are England. As Olympic hosts, Britain, which is in effect the England team anyway, are guaranteed their place.

To win a qualifier with perhaps five or six teams involved, or to come top four in a European Championships with eight teams, next summer’s event in Germany may represent Ireland’s best chance of gaining entry to their first modern Olympic Games.

IRISH HOCKEY LEAGUE 2010-11

Pool A:Cookstown (Ulster 1); Corinthian (Leinster 2); Glenanne (Leinster 3); Annadale (Ulster 4); Cork C of I (Munster 1); Lisnagarvey (Wildcard 1).

Pool B:Pembroke Wanderers (Leinster 1); Banbridge (Ulster 2); Instonians (Ulster 3); Monkstown (Leinster 4); Cork Harlequins (Munster 2); YMCA (Wildcard 2).