Men’s Hockey Pool B: Ireland 0 India 2
A greatly improved second half was not enough to give Ireland their first win of the Paris Olympics at Stade Yves du Manoir. Missed chances, especially in the third quarter where Ireland had eight penalty corners and a one-on-one with Indian goalkeeper Sreejesh Parattu Raveendran, proved costly to their prospect of advancing to the quarter-finals.
Ireland must finish fourth in the pool but have no wins from three games and two matches remaining against New Zealand and Argentina.
“I didn’t think we were at our best in Q1 and Q2. We played them with too much respect plus our basics let us down and that was important to try and keep the ball,” said Irish coach Mark Tumilty. " We asked for a bit more work and a bit more heart at half-time and I think we got that and at this level you’ve got to execute penalty corners. We definitely left corners out there and we left one big chance.”
India started smartly and within two minutes were in Ireland’s goal area earning a penalty corner. But it was a cut-out pass and counterattack that gave them their first goal, Gurjant Singh driving onto the goal area with a spare man outside him.
Rushing out, goalkeeper David Harte upended the Indian forward with the Australian umpire instantly awarding a penalty. Captain Harmpreet Singh converted high into the Irish net to put India 1-0 up after 11 minutes before he added another from a penalty corner seven minutes later when the ball struck an Irish foot in the circle. It was India’s fourth of the day with Singh sending it high and right of Harte for 2-0.
Ireland came back in the second half and pressed India in the third quarter. But finishing was an issue and despite several circle penetrations, a miss in front of goals and another at the far post at a corner, frustrated the Irish effort and Ireland came away with nothing in their best spell. Overall Ireland earned 10 penalty corners for zero conversions.
“We could have got one, we might have got another which would have made it interesting,” said Tumilty. “Disappointing because I thought that was a game where there was opportunity for us. At this level you need to take your chances. I always thought six points was going to qualify. We have to win the last two matches. At this level you get punished for not executing in the final third. "
Ireland meet Argentina on August 1st.
Ireland: D Harte, L Cole, S O’Donoghue, P Brown, T Cross, M Robson, M Nelson, S Murray (capt), J Duncan, J McKee, K Marshall. Rolling subs: D Walsh, P McKibbin, B Walker, B Johnson, N Page
India: S Parattu Raveendran, J Singh, A Abhishek, M Singh, Mandeep Singh, S Sing, Harmpreet Singh, S Sumit, Shamser Singh, H Singh, A Rohidas. Rolling subs: G Singh, S Sanjay, K Upadhyay, K Pal, V Prasad
