Coach Craig Fulton would have been looking for a more sympathetic draw for his Irish hockey team's opening few games in the Rio Olympic Games. The South African coach knew that there was no easy way of looking at their Pool B, when the draw was first made for the teams.
But facing the seventh ranked side in the world, India, followed by the defending Olympic Champions, the Netherlands, and then the third best team in the world rankings, Germany, is, given the Olympic canvas, the biggest challenge Ireland have ever faced.
Sequence of matches
The team open their tournament against India at 11.00am local time on August 6th, before facing the Dutch, ranked two in the world, the following day at 6.00pm. Ireland then have a rest day on August 8th before playing Germany the following day at 12:30, not a good time for Rio.
It is not just the sequence of matches but the concentration of them. Over the opening four days, Ireland play three Test matches against the seventh, third and second ranked teams in the world.
The pool games draw to a close against the 14th ranked Canadians on August 11th at 11:00am and Argentina on August 12th at 7:30pm. A positive note is that any sort of result from the first three games would give Ireland some momentum with a winnable game against Canada in front of them.
Pool A is the strikingly easier of the pools and contain a few teams such as Spain and Britain, who Ireland have beaten in recent years, while Ireland have played Belgium a number of times over the past 12 months and are familiar with the way they play.
The Brazilian team, who had to prove to the International Olympic Committee that they were of high enough standard to be given the automatic hosts position in the tournament are also in Pool A and ranked way outside the rest of the field at 32 in the world.
“The Olympic schedule is finally released and we are very happy with the times and days our games have been allocated,” said Fulton. “We will play five pool games in the first seven days so we will be ready for that challenge one game at a time. We have an exciting first game against India in game one.”
OLYMPIC SCHEDULE
Saturday, August 6th – 18.0
India v Ireland
Sunday, August 7th – 6.0
Netherlands v Ireland
Tuesday, August 9th – 12.30
Germany v Ireland
Thursday, August 11th – 11.0
Ireland v Canada
Friday, August 12th – 19:30
Ireland v Argentina.
