South Africa 4 Ireland 0
A 4-0 mauling and an eighth -place finish overall provided an extra harsh exclamation mark, ending the World League Round 3 competition that offered so much Olympic hope in desperate fashion.
Coach Darren Smith, in his last match in charge, said the heartache at the hands of the world number seven side China was probably still in evidence.
“That game is not a reflection of this tournament or the girls,” he said.
”We worked hard to get a quality performance but I think there was still a lot of baggage from earlier in the week.”
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He was referring to the shoot-out loss last Thursday when the width of a post denied Megan Frazer from landing a ticket to Rio in 2016. Their second chance was subsequently wiped away by USA, the world number five, on Saturday 6-1.
And, battered and bruised, they took to the field yesterday two short of a quorum with Shirley McCay suspended and Chloe Watkins rested having spent 45 minutes after Saturday's game under observation due to an irregular heart beat.
By the end, Nikki Evans was added to the list as her jaw sustained a horrible whack.
South Africa after an underwhelming campaign that saw them with just two draws from six prior games. They were noticeably more game-ready and swept to the win in the second half, breezing home.
Candace Manuel’s first half deflection from a corner gave them the early advantage. Lisa-Marie Deetlefs slapped home a second after the big break before Lilian du Plessis fired a rasping shot to the top corner and Kelly Madsen scrambled home the fourth.
It was a shadow of the performance 11 days earlier when Ireland swept to a 4-1 win over the same opposition, rated 11th in the world, three places above Smith’s side.
Backed up by a 3-2 win over Uruguay and a surprise 2-0 success over the US, setting up the China date which left the side flattened and in floods of tears.
The task of raising the side now falls to Graham Shaw who takes over the reins from Smith – who is returning to his family in his native New Zealand – with the European B division just a few weeks away.
Despite this weekend’s setbacks, he leaves a side in good shape and one that has been able to mix it with the top ten, something they had not done for five years.
“The girls have better hockey in front of them than what they have behind them – our captain’s 23 and has been one of the best players in the tournament,” said Darren Smith.
"When I started the job, I had a list of ten things I wanted to achieve. One of them was a platform to launch the sport into the future. I think the World Cup in 2018 and the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 – this team can get there and I will be a happy man when that happens."
To do that, though, he says that the high performance programme needs to be aligned closely with the junior age-group programmes, something is not quite in place.
“There’s so many good core materials for success. I look at hockey being played in the schools . . . clubs that have strength and a real passion for the sport. But a strong high performance programme needs to have a bit of vision around it. I’m not sure it’s quite there at the moment.”
