Ireland have been drawn in a pool with the USA, Germany, Spain and India for the Olympic qualifying tournament in Milton Keynes next March, where they must finish in the top five if they are to win a place at the Sydney Games later in the year. Hosts Britain, New Zealand, China, Japan and Russia make up the second pool.
"It's not impossible," said coach Riet Kuper on hearing the draw, "but that's what the other countries will think as well when they look at it. We can play against them all, even if our results haven't been good recently, but I think it could be a very close pool."
Ireland lost to both Germany (0-2) and Spain (1-2) in the European Nations' Cup finals in August and to the USA (1-2) in a tournament in Vancouver last June, while India won 1-0 the last time the two nations met in the opening match of the 1997 World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe. "We will have problems with India because of their skills but all our recent matches against our pool opponents have been close," Kuper pointed out. "And if we play like we can play I don't think it's impossible for us to finish in the top two in our pool, which would automatically qualify us for the Olympics, or, at worst, to finish third and go in to a play-off for the last qualifying place." Twelve of Ireland's squad from the European Nations' Cup finals were among the goals over the weekend, with Pamela Magill the leading individual scorer when she helped herself to four for Pegasus against Omagh in a 14-0 romp - her international team-mates Claire McMahon and Karen Humphreys both scored hat-tricks.
Rachel Kohler and Karen O'Brien shared four goals in Harlequins' 8-0 win against Bandon while Caitriona Carey, Jenny Burke and Irish captain Mary Logue helped Hermes recover from going a goal down to Pembroke Wanderers to win 4-1 and maintain their 100 per cent winning start to the season.
Hermes, though, still trail Old Alexandra at the top of the Leinster Senior A table, on goal difference, after the leaders beat Railway Union 5-0 at Milltown, with new recruit and former Muckross stalwart Orla Bell opening the scoring. Trinity stay fourth in the table but were denied a win over Genesis on Saturday when Helen Hughes equalised seven minutes from time but Senior A's other college side, UCD, had a comfortable 2-0 win over Muckross at Rathdown, despite being without Jenny Osborne and Katherine Little (injury and illness victims).
