Women's Hockey European Championship: Irish coach Riet Kuper departed the Olympic complex on Mount Montjuic yesterday morning, her team having secured six points from two matches and been fleetingly on top of Pool A of the European Championships.
It is the first time in her reign that the side has produced such a promising start in a major tournament, but it was far from trouble free. Angela Platt's exceptional goalkeeping in the dying minutes finally allowed Ireland to walk away battle-worn, their winning record intact and with the unbeaten Germans now in their sights.
For Kuper, it was a chance to see the two-faced nature of her team, one side a controlled and composed unit, which ably held possession and created chances, for the ever improving Eimear Cregan, Jenny Burke and Lynsey McVicker, and the other a nervous side labouring to close out a match which they led 2-0 at half-time.
"I would have been disgusted if they'd gotten the equaliser," admitted Kuper afterwards. "By our standards we had a lot of chances. Then we let it go down in the second half and Italy pressed us better."
Italy had a wealth of eye-catching flair, which they used to dangerously patrol the Irish circle and manufacture short corners but a combination of Platt and shabby set pieces allowed Ireland some breathing space.
The promising beginning delivered Ireland's first goal after only four minutes of play. Cregan, occasionally raw but possessing a delightful ability to run with the ball and trigger desperation in opposition defences, took off up the right wing and began to weave her way along the back line.
Confronted by goalkeeper Roberta Lilliu, the Limerick student somehow squeezed the ball through a fissure between the pads for Ireland to take the lead.
Comfortably controlling the game from midfield, where Jill Orbinson and team captain Rachael Kohler enforced the law, Ireland appeared to be playing in the comfort zone and when McVicker snapped a rebound off the pads on Ireland's third corner, the team went into the half-time interval with reasonable expectations of adding to that lead.
But standing off the Italians when they came out proved a costly error and Italy began to run more freely.
The more cautiously Ireland played, the more errors crept into their play and when Giorgia Carradori struck on 58 minutes from the Italian's seventh corner, Ireland fell hostage to nerves.
The closing 10 minutes were an ugly affair, with Ireland locked in their own third of the pitch and unable to string much together. Finally it was Orbinson who blocked Italy's 10th set piece in the last play of the match for the fraught but fair win.
IRELAND: A Platt, L Caulfield, D Sixsmith, C O'Brien, K Maybin, J Burke, R Kohler (capt.), J Orbinson, E Cregan, L McVicker, B McKeever. Rolling subs: C McKean, J McDonough, K Bateman.
ITALY: R Lilliu, S Girotti, E Tagliasacchi, L Torretta, V Corso, F Faustini F, S Scalia (capt.), L Garcia, S Previgliano, M Canavosio, D Miranda. Rolling subs: G Carradori, A Tagliasacchi, T Nicoletti.
Umpires: M de Klerk, B Gonzalez.
