Hockey Ireland stalls all activity until March 29th

In a decision taken last night, Hockey Ireland (HI) has postponed all hockey activity with immediate effect until March 29th. Furthermore it is directing all clubs and schools under its auspices to do the same.

The only exception to the islandwide postponement is the women's national team, who are currently in preparation for the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer. They have a planned trip to South Africa for warm weather training which will go ahead.

Ireland are scheduled to meet China five times on the trip with the first of them on Saturday, March 21st. They will also play Japan twice and South Africa once.

In a statement issued last night covering all four provinces, Hockey Ireland said alternative arrangements for league and cup matches will be reviewed by them in the coming weeks and decisions will be communicated as appropriate.

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The most immediate casualty is the Leinster schools finals, including the prestigious Leinster Schoolgirls Senior Cup, which was due to take place on Friday in Grange Road. This and a number of other school finals were organised as a blitz beginning at 10.30am.

St Patrick’s Day

On St Patrick’s Day, the men’s Leinster Senior Cup men’s between Three Rock Rovers and Monkstown scheduled for 4pm and the women’s final, for which the finalists had not yet been decided, have also been postponed.

This weekend, the following weekend and the weekend of March 28th all have EY Irish Hockey League matches scheduled for both men and women. These too will not go ahead as planned.

The HI statement adds that all hockey activity including training and education across clubs and schools must now cease. Staff in the HI offices in UCD are now working remotely.

Both the schools event and the St Patrick's Day finals would have exceeded the number of 500 set out by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in his announcement that all indoor mass gatherings of more than 100 people and outdoor mass gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled.