MEN'S HOCKEY European Trophy: If anything, Ireland's last gasp 1-1 draw with Wales in their second pool A game of the European Championship Trophy has reinforced the idea that despite their tag as tournament favourites, there is no small degree of slog as well as some potential pit falls ahead.

On the positive side, the yellow cards dished out to David Hobbs and Iain Lewers, and the green cards to Justin Sherriff and Stephen Butler in a physical match against Wales, during which a total of seven cards were shown, indicates a side that is aggressively up to the task of gaining promotion to the elite European Championship and a place in next year's World Cup qualifiers.

While striker Mark Irwin was taken away for hospital treatment and received three stitches to a facial wound after the fractious game so, too, were the blazers of the Irish Hockey Association considering making a formal complaint over the behaviour of Wales top goal scorer Oliver Cooper.

Cooper was given his marching orders when the umpire finally had enough of the repeated heavy tackling and Cooper was shown the sin bin for professionally breaking down play in midfield.

As he petulantly walked at a deliberately slow pace to the sideline, the Irish and Italian spectators began to boo as the player was holding up the match, something he didn't particularly seem to care about.

When he reached the bin he gave a two-fingered gesture to the stand in a thinly disguised effort at rubbing his nose.

On the face of it, Cooper was more childish than obscene. It was his second binning in two games and he was also the player who dramatically rolled over eight times at the end of the match, which drew the ire of Lewers.

The Irish player naively tried to pull him off the turf and was then promptly shown the card for his effort on 67 minutes.

The reality is that Ireland could again meet Wales in the cross-over games, a spicy enough prospect indeed.

But Russia first. In 2002 Ireland beat them 5-0 and in Barcelona two years ago the score line was 3-0. Russia has improved since then but with two losses so far in this southern suburb of Rome, they are struggling to meet the pace.

Irish coach Dave Passmore has seen them play prior to the tournament and Ireland remain cautiously optimistic about heading the pool and playing the second-placed team in the other group in the first classification match.

"Dave did travel to watch them earlier this year," said Irish manager Stephen Hiles. "So we know what they are about. They have a few players back in the squad and they can be dangerous."

Irwin is fit to play and Ireland have no other injury worries so they go into the Russian game with a full squad.

All of the outfield players have been given pitch time with only Butler, captain Paddy Brown, Jason Black and goalkeeper Wesley Bateman playing all the time. Butler is shifted from midfield to right back for his "rest" periods.

Sherriff, with his first match hat-trick remains in the leading group of three players along with Cooper and Ihar Pakhalchuk as the tournament top scorers, while Butler is in the chasing pack with two goals.

From 18 short corners over two matches, that is one statistic Ireland would want to improve on if they have aspirations of promotion and finally mixing it with world class teams such as Holland, Germany and Spain.