Ireland's Olympic dream ended in Milton Keynes yesterday in the most agonising circumstances when they conceded a golden-goal winner to China in the second half of extra time, just two minutes, 27 seconds away from a penalty strokes competition, having kept their opponents scoreless for 83 minutes. It was the cruellest of blows for a team that had produced a wonderfully spirited and disciplined defensive display, with sweeper Arlene Boyles exceptional and goalkeeper Tara Browne, once again, simply heroic.
Browne, who has benefited from the coaching of Peter Darley over the past few months, even drew the praise of hard-top-lease Australian coach Rick Charlesworth, a spectator at the match, who said he'd hadn't seen a better goalkeeper in the entire tournament. High praise, indeed. She needed to be at her best too, with China firing in shots from the nine corners they won in the course of a game that they largely dominated and nine minutes from the end of normal time she made a world-class, pointblank save from Huipang Sang that kept her team alive.
While Ireland were much more competitive than they had been against Spain in their previous match they still failed to get a single shot on target in the 83 minutes of playing time, with Lynsey McVicker and Mary Logue going well wide with their team's only goal attempts.
Ireland failed to capitalise on an 11-minute spell in the first half when China were down to 10 players after left back Junxia Huang was yellow-carded for stick-chopping Claire McMahon but, again, they simply did not have the ability to break down a top quality defence. Caitriona Carey, another Irish player to catch Charlesworth's eye, was pushed up front for the first time in the tournament and added some much needed craft to the attack but still they failed to trouble goalkeeper Yali Nie.
With both teams seemingly overcome by their fear of losing there was deadlock until extra time when Ireland won their first penalty corner of the game. Logue, though, failed to stop Rachel Kohler's push-out cleanly and the chance was lost.
The winning score came just when it seemed likely that a shoot-out would be needed to separate the sides. China won a free hit on the left of the circle and when the ball was fired across the face of goal, Yang slid in to force it across the line.
"We are heart-broken to have lost but I think we can say that Ireland is back on the hockey map after this tournament," said coach Riet Kuper. "We can be a real force in the next two years."
Ireland meet Japan today (1.30) in the play-off for seventh place.
IRELAND: T Browne, L Caulfield, A Boyles, D Sixsmith, C O'Kelly, M Logue (capt), L Brown, R Kohler, C McMahon, J Burke, K O'Brien. Subs: C Carey, K Humphreys, K Mills, L McVicker.
