The Irish Women’s Hockey team is to play a three-match series, sponsored by Softco, against Great Britain in Belfast on March 13th, 14th and 16th.
The games will take place at Queens University Belfast and will be the first games they have played on an Irish pitch since qualifying for the Olympics in dramatic fashion at Energia Park in December 2019.
Team GB are the reigning Olympic Champions and will be one of the five teams Ireland face in the group stage of the Tokyo games, looking for one of the four spots that will see them into the knockout stages.
There will be no crowds at the matches but the second game on Sunday will be shown live on RTÉ2, hosted by Evanne Ní Chuillin, Cliodhna Sargent and Gillian Pinder, and with commentary from George Hamilton and Sarah Scott.
It is hoped that the other two games will be shown live on the RTÉ player. BBC NI will show online live coverage of all three games on the BBC iPlayer, with Nigel Ringland and Alex Speers on the microphone.
The announcement came on the 125th anniversary of the first ever Women’s international field hockey match. A year after the establishment of the Irish Ladies Hockey Association, the match took place on the 2nd of March 1986 at Alexandra College, with the Irish Women recording a 2 – 0 victory over England, with goals from Johnson and Obre sealing the win.
The matches will provide the Green Army with the opportunity to play high quality international matches ahead of an intense international summer.
The EuroHockey Championships in the Netherlands are an integral part of the World Cup qualification process. Ireland reached the World Cup final in 2018 but will need to secure their place through qualification. It will also be a key warm-up for the Olympics where Ireland and Great Britain have been drawn together in the group stage.
“Given the past 12 months, we are really excited to play these international matches at home,” said team captain Katie Mullen.
“The squad has been training hard throughout which showed in our recent matches against Spain. They are a strong team and we recorded two wins and two draws out of the five friendlies, putting us in a confident position going into our next block of training.”
“These matches against GB will be great preparation for the EuroHockey Championships this summer ahead of travelling to Tokyo. As current Olympic gold medallists GB are an experienced and strong team, so this is a really good opportunity for us to put all the training into practice ahead of this summer.”
Match dates, times and where to watch:
Match 1: Saturday March 13th @ 2pm. BBC Sport NI website, BBC iPlayer. RTE Player TBC.
Match 2: Sunday March 14th @ 5pm. BBC Sport NI Online, BBC iPlayer, RTE 2
Match 3: Tuesday March 16th @ 3pm. BBC Sport NI Online, BBC iPlayer. RTE Player TBC.
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