Ireland Men’s Coach, Andrew Meredith has named an 18 man squad for the upcoming FIH World League 2 tournament in India. Ireland will begin their World League 2 adventure vs. Bangladesh in New Delhi on 18th February 2013 before facing Fiji, India, Oman and finally China on 24th February 2013.
FIH World League 2 is organised in a round robin format on this occasion and there is no additional medal placing games at this tournament. The 7 top placed teams across the four World League 2 tournaments will join hosts Malaysia in World League 3 in June 2013.
The Green Machine will begin their preparations for World League 2 by departing Dublin for Malaysia on the 8th February 2013 where they will play 3 warm up games vs Malaysia before flying on to New Delhi on the 14th February 2013.
Ireland last played Malaysia in December 2012 when Peter Caruth struck a golden goal to seal a 2-1 victory and with it, Bronze medals for Ireland in the Champions Challenge.
Meredith has named an experienced squad for FIH World League 2 in India following a training camp last weekend in Ulster. The Irish Coach has drafted in Phelie Maguire, Peter Brown & Alan Sothern to the Green Machine Squad.
While Brown has yet to be capped at this level both Maguire & Sothern are experienced Internationals having represented Ireland on 103 & 54 occasions respectively.
Meredith has also had to plan without 3 players involved in Champions Challenge 1 in Argentina for World League 2 with John Jermyn & Andy McConnell both unavailable due to employment commitments while Timothy Cockram is due to be married.
Speaking following the squad announcement, Green Machine Coach, Andrew Meredith said ‘It’s clearly a very exciting opportunity for those who have been selected to go and compete in the New Delhi tournament. At this critical stage of the qualification process, our goal is pretty clear, with only the top 2 countries progressing to the following round of Semi-Finals in the summer.
The World League 2, presents not only a challenge to the playing group in as far as acclimatising to unique environmental and cultural factors, but it represents an opportunity to experience playing in a country, where hockey has an incredibly large following while playing in a stadium that has a capacity of 20,000 spectators.’
Meredith continued ‘The selection of the team represents and reflects the recent training camp performances, with experienced players re-enforcing that not only do they still have the ability to play international hockey, but they are still hungry to progress and develop.
There is also a number of young players that have begun to identify themselves and show that they have the potential to add to the competition for Senior squad places, which, moving forward over the coming World Cup cycle, will be a key element in the sustainability of our current performance level and long term evolution of the playing group.’
1. David Fitzgerald (Monkstown) 2. David Harte (SV Kampong, Holland) 3. Paul Gleghorne (Instonians) 4. Ronan Gormley (Krefeld HC, Germany) 5. Conor Harte (SCHC, Holland) 6. John Jackson (Braxgata, Belgium) 7. Stuart Loughrey (Team Bath Buccaneers) 8. Bruce McCandless (Banbridge) 9. Chris Cargo (Reading, England) 10. Eugene Magee (Krefeld HC, Germany) 11. Geoff McCabe (Santander, Spain) 12. Phelie Maguire (THC Hurley) 13. Peter Brown (Banbridge) 14. Peter Caruth (Braxgata, Belgium) 15. Mitch Darling (Three Rock Rovers) 16. Shane O’Donoghue (UCD) 17. Alan Sothern (Pembroke Wanderers) 18. Michael Watt (SCHC, Holland)
