The Irish men and women will find out their Olympic qualifier path on Monday afternoon with the draw taking place at the International Hockey Federation offices at 12pm.
For the women, ranked eighth in the world, they are assured of a home tie in either late October or early November. It will be against one of either Korea (11th), Belgium (12th), USA (13th) or Canada (15th) with their opponent drawn out of a hat.
The qualifier will be played over two legs, both in Ireland, over the course of one weekend with the aggregate score deciding who goes to Tokyo.
On the men’s side, Ireland have dropped to 13th in the world rankings – released on Sunday – following their relegation from the top tier in Europe in August.
It means they will play away from home in the qualifiers. Their potential opponents for the two-legged affair will be one of Britain (7th), Spain (8th), New Zealand (9th) or Canada (10th).
Elsewhere, former Irish women’s coach Graham Shaw enjoyed almost instant success with New Zealand, earning their ticket for Tokyo 2020 on Sunday in Rockhampton.
They won their best of three series with Australia to be crowned the Oceania champions for the first time since 2011.
Shaw’s side won the first leg of their best of three series 3-1 before losing the second 3-2. It meant a draw would be enough in game three which they duly achieved with Olivia Merry scoring the vital equaliser with five minutes to go.
Shaw shocked Irish hockey when he vacated the top job in the spring following the Green Army’s World Cup silver medal last summer for the gig with the world number six side.
But this success provided an extra justification for his switch as New Zealand became the fifth side to qualify for the Games.
“What a feeling!” Shaw said afterwards. “A little bit ugly at time but that’s what you need sometimes, to dig in and stick together. Maybe a little bit of luck but really proud of the effort everyone has put in.”
Asked which success he rated as bigger in his career, Shaw added: “That’s two very different things and being from Ireland, it was a very special thing. It was a really big decision to come over here and really happy it has worked out!”
