Pro League Hockey: England edge past Ireland for first win

It was an open and end-to-end game from the start with both sides desperate for a first Pro League victory of the campaign.

It was England who took the lead in the fourth minute. After good work down the right-hand side from Katie Curtis, her ball into the circle was deflected high into the Irish net by Howard.

The visitors thought they had a second goal before half-time from a penalty corner, but a referral to the third umpire showed the ball was trapped inside the circle.

England controlled the game after the interval, forcing Ireland to work hard to win possession and when they did, they gave it up cheaply.

The second England goal came in the opening stages of the final quarter as Hunt stepped into the circle and fired an unstoppable shot off the post and into the net.

Not for the first time this week, Ireland then began playing their best hockey when two goals down and with eight minutes remaining, they scored to make it a grandstand finish.

Perdue’s strong drag flick from a penalty corner was too much for England goalkeeper Sabbie Heesh to handle.

It led to an uncomfortable last few minutes as Ireland pushed for an equaliser, but England held on for a deserved victory.

“Probably disappointed with the result in the end today, but over the course of the week really happy with the performances and one of the things we’ve talked about a lot was consistency and I think we had that over the four games against teams ranked much higher than us,” said Irish coach Gareth Grundie.

“We were in each game getting into the final minutes so that will certainly give us a lot of confidence going forward and obviously the result against England on Thursday was points on the board and we’ll take that confidence going to Australia in February.”

Ireland face a big six months with the next round of the Pro League in Hobart at the start of February and the World Cup qualifiers in Chile at the end of the same month.

Two more rounds of games in the Pro League will follow with hopefully a World Cup to then look forward to in August.