International friendly: France 6 (Jean-Baptiste Pauchet 2, Yannick Schambert, Olivier Sanchez, Mathieu Durchon 2) Ireland 1 (Eugene Magee)
Ireland received a reality check from France in their first warm-up game for November’s World Cup qualifiers as they were hammered 6-1 in Paris this evening.
Three French goals between the 19th and 23rd minute undid a decent Irish start with Olivier Sanchez scoring the third to mark his debut in style.
Eugene Magee got Ireland’s only goal of the game - his 21st in the Irish jersey - from a 25th minute drag-flick.
Iain Walker pulled off a series of saves but France offered little mercy as Mathieu Durchon cracked in a goal either side of half-time and Jean-Baptiste Pauchet scored his second goal of the game in the 43rd minute to round out the scoring.
It proved a chastening experience for Belgian-based Phelie Maguire and Mikey Watt who made returns to the panel after lengthy absences - the former due to his time in Palestine, the latter returning from injury.
France, for their part, fielded a much changed side from their European championship squad with eight new faces into the squad and five stepping out including veteran Freddie Soyez and Maxine Lanos due to injury.
Ireland: Iain Walker, Tim Lewis Ronan Gormley (capt), Joe Brennan, Johnny Jackson, Geoff McCabe, Graham Shaw, David Hobbs, Eugene Magee, Mikey Watt, Alan Sothern
Subs: Mitch Darling, Andy McConnell, Phelie Maguire, Conor Harte, Peter Caruth
Fixture (Thursday): France vs Ireland, Paris, 1.30pm Irish time
Ireland: Iain Walker, Tim Lewis Ronan Gormley (capt), Joe Brennan, Johnny Jackson, Geoff McCabe, Graham Shaw, David Hobbs, Eugene Magee, Mikey Watt, Alan Sothern
Subs: Mitch Darling, Andy McConnell, Phelie Maguire, Conor Harte, Peter Caruth
Fixture (Thursday): France vs Ireland, Paris, 1.30pm Irish time
26 comments:
serious performance...
How can Phelie Maguire and Mikey Watt return to the Irish panel after lengthy absences without having to work their way back on to the team?Was Phelie playing hockey in Palestine?
Englan beat France 8-0 before euros..olympics?
not too sure any irish squad can afford not to pick player like phelie.
ireland must have played terrible. we are definately better than france on paper. not great signs for the world cup
Lads, remember our results at home to Poland recently & how Poland performed in the Europeans. Don't really expect us to have much chance in the qualifiers. I hope I'm wrong but I can't see where the vast improvement is going to come from.
ouch that hurt, the only way is up
More importantly, the squad has been training very very hard and the amount of physical exercise has been increased. The guys had a very heavy physical gym and running scedule so this result is not really a surprise as heavy legs will cause this type of result.
The players being looked at had to be given a chance to see if they had made any progress and to see if they should maybe be in contention for Argentina.
Friendly results are not the importasnt results and as long as the coaching staff and the players are happy they are going forward that is what counts.
6-1. Harsh. Anyone see it? What were stats like, were they just crap or was 6-1 way harsh. did they have many corners, chances etc? Could have been one of those games where everything went right for france and wrong for ireland cos there's no way france are 5 goals better than us.
in the rankings where are france in relation to ireland
11.49 your comment bears no relevance at all. these guys are meant to be international athletes and they are being given some of the best training programmes available, so heavy legs is a pathetic excuse for such a result. you can be guaranteed the frence have equally demanding training programmes.come on lets not do the traditional irish way and try to whine our way out of something with excuses. The IHA have been avoiding responsibility for years its about time they grew a pair and fingers were pointed at those who arn't doing there jobs.
In regards to Anonymous, September 24, 2009 11:49 AM, I think he/she makes a very important point. More importantly to Pembroke supporters this could be a worry for their hopes of EHL qualifications. I think they have 6 or 7 internationals at this stage thats over half the starting team. Tired/heavy legs could prove very costly. If these players are tired now what will they be like in a few weeks, with several more internationals ahead of them?
A hard choice for these internationals, where does their loyalties lie to Ireland or to their club-do they or should they take a break from international training until the 1st round of EHL is over?? I mean no disrespect to the Glens an equally formidable team but only 3 in the set up-still plenty though.
1-1 today
current rankings as follows:
Ireland 18
France 17
Poland 22
Russia 23
Scotland 24
and Wales 29
Lets face it we are going to spend till we have no money and no coaches..and then who will be left to pick up the pices...
Bad news for Irish hockey fans, especially 12.55, yes. France is a better team. They impressed in Amsterdam and they are ahead of Ireland. But what's wrong with that? Why so negative about the Senior Men? Don't forget these matches are just a test.
Dont panic, 1-1 to-day and for GET
REAL'S sake and peace of mind(remember him?)Butsie will be back against the Scots.
I wouldn't be to harsh on the Irish lads. Goals can be scored so quickly at the top level. Even if you simply switch off for 5 mins you could find yourself out of the game.
Yes its not a great score line but the team could have been trying out new tactics/pressure zones and it didn't work. Better to have tried and failed than nothing at all.
Phelie is a class player and deserves a chance to prove he should go the the WCQ.
As for not sending the team to Argentina...
If they do qualify then its a massive boost to irish hockey in general so justification in itself. If we don't aspire to be great then we end up going backwards and kill the game we love.
International Team rankings:
World - France 17th; Ireland 18th
Europe - France 6th; Ireland 8th
EHL Club rankings:
France 6th; Ireland 7th
Nothing I hate more than excuses....there are a few of the international in our team and they looked fresher and faster than anyone else at the minute. Whilst I am gutted for them on this performance heavy legs is definitely not an excuse
The team are past it. What a comment. Its laughable. Have you looked at the average age of the team. Its under 25. This is our future. Like it or not. I think we should support them as hockey supporters and not always be putting them down. Why are we always creating a negative feeling towards them going into major tournaments. None of us were there so we dont know what happened. Im sure our players read this and creating a negative feeling amoung them will not help them. We need to get behind them. I predict they will get to the final in Argentina.
Think one of the reasons for the negative air could be people see so much time and money being put into senior men at the expense of under age squads who apart from u18s this year had to fund themselves to represent their country and yet the mens results overall should be better for the money that is being spent. Also people may feel that some players are being overlooked or not getting a fair crack of the whip. Huge pool training and making sacrifices at the moment many of who won't make it so why not put them out of their misery and thus save some money!!!!
Perhaps this is controversial but here goes.
The massive problem with Irish Hockey at present is that we are, and have been totally unrealistic regarding expectations over the past few years. This began with professionals such as Paul Varian and Dave Passmore having to secure funding for the teams by going to the ISC and SportNI and outlining what we were and were not going to qualify for and how well we were expected to do. These were in turn fed to the hockey public and was clearly planned to keep the profile of the sport in the public and media eye in order to attract sponsorship etc to the game. Unfortunately what we have ended up with is an IHA who is 'bigging' up the National teams far and beyond where realistically we actually are. We are 8th in Europe, every other team above us is almost semi if not full professional - our aim should be to stay up in 'A' Division but want we get is comments from Passmore like this from the hook January 2008
"it is 17 years since the Ireland men last competed in an Olympic qualifier back in 1991 co-incidentally in Auckland also. This represents a fantastic opportunity for this squad to realise a lifetime ambition to qualify for the Olympic Games in Beijing"
Realistically what we have is a pretty mediocre top league here in Leinster and across the board.
None of our top club players can compete in the top European league - Belgium ( give me a break the team the Bann boys joined isnt even EHL ) go and play in Holland or Germany. There is no doubt that the coaching powers in the IHA realise this and have actively encourage players to play abroad rather than at home, an admittance that they are just not going to get better here.
Thank goodness that the EHL is paid for because what a waste of money for a club in Ireland that would be. we are not even close to competeing at club level.
Whilst this post seems ultra negative I am only trying to be realistic. Anyone who has ever travelled to other countries will know how far we really are away from the big time. We simply DONT have the money ( have the Irish men got a sponsor yet???) DONT have the athletes ( in the mens we behind GAA, Rugby, Soccer at least in trying to attract people to the game ), the schools system is struggling with not enough real quality coaching being done and facilities for 90% of clubs are just OK. The clubs who make money each year must be in the very very small minority.
This is why we must maintain the "give it a lash" attitude rather than expecting so much believeing the hype and then ultimately getting let down. It is not the players fault, or the coach of the national teams fault. We are an average hockey playing nation with average numbers playing the sport, average facilities, and below average Association and average will always be as close to the bottom as it is to the top
Dave Passmore recently admitted that the corrections that senior international players are having to make are because of deficiencies as a result of not receiving the benefits of learning these skills at a very young age.
Indeed this is partially what the Talent ID program was setup to address. There is no question that the investment needs to be made in junior player development. There have been an enormous number of international matches this year at great expense and in contrast those attending the Talent ID sessions are having to pay for the hire of a pitch.
Have we got our priorities right. I for one don't think so.
dont agree with that. we can compete in ehl. rovers did it last year and pembroke nearly did it the year before.
think about it luven only beat rovers by a goal, luven went on to the SEMI final, fact.
you also say that the national team should be getting better results due to their funding, wake up, every national team gets funding. would you like to start funding the juniors and not the seniors? i think you would find you would loose most players in this case and then ireland hockey would be off the map, no ranking points, no ehl.
I am soory if people on this blog feel that heavy legs is an not an excuse.
I work in sport and have done for over 35 years and these type of results are not unexpected and are not unusual.
1. During the summer most of these players could concetrate on playing only.
2. After the last bit of success they had about 3 weeks off.
3. They went back to an even heavier program of training both in the gym and on the pitch.
4. Lastly and maybe the most important fact, alot went back to work, the body really takes several weeks if not longer to accomadate to the extra mental and physical stresses that it is now taking on.
These players as a group are training very hard indeed, they push themselves at every session until they drop.
Lets support them no matter what the outcome is as they are not slacking or shirking their responsibilities.
I for one will support them and the coaching staff, after this post I will not read the hook anymore as all it does is critisise players and coaches both at international, provincial and at club level who are doing their best.
Though nothing is written in stone that you will succeed
If you look at the timelines for Ireland and France, they are at different stages.
Ireland are at the start of their build-up after a few weeks off. France have continued straight from the Euros to their WCQ as its a much shorter gap between the two competitions so can understand the result.
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