Taking the road less travelled

RIET KUPER has collected a lot of air miles during her eight-year tenure as Irish coach.

There were trips to Korea, Argentina, South Africa, America, New Zealand and Australia, not to mention zig-zagging across Europe.

Tomorrow, she begins another journey which will be every bit as taxing as any long-haul flight.

The diminutive fiftysomething from southern Holland leads her Irish ladies team into the 7th European Nations Championships in Dublin tomorrow.

This time around, she has set her sights on a prize very much higher than her charges have ever achieved before.

At 5.45pm tomorrow evening, Kuper’s Irish squad will take on France in the final game on the opening day of the championships, and victory, she believes, will put them on the road to at least a semi-final confrontation against either England or Germany.

“It is very exciting to be playing in Dublin because all the major tournaments in recent years have all been far away from home - New Zealand, Australia and so on - so having it in Dublin this time is great,” she says.

It is a matter of some disappointment for the coach, a former Dutch international, that hockey does not have the same profile or support in Ireland as it does in her native land, but she sees this competition as an opportunity to change that.

“I don’t think the general public are aware of the quality of the players we have here,” the coach says, “and I think the players themselves want to show the public what they can do, how hard they have worked and how competitive they can be against top-class opposition.”

While results have shown a tangible improvement during her tenure, the resultant heightened public expectations have not have not always been met.

But the coach has her reasons for being confident.

“While Germany are not in our pool in these Europeans, we showed against them recently in Dublin that we were able to create a lot of chances. If you can do that against the Olympic champions then you can do well,” she says.

“Of those playing in our pool, we have been able to beat the French in recent years and we beat then in the recent Celtic Cup as well. But, I know the French and I know they have been to a training camp in South Africa since then and they will be a better team as a result. Even so, I expect we will be able to beat them.”

Ireland’s other crunch clash comes on Tuesday against Spain at 7pm.Kuper reckons they are “a bit of an unknown at the moment” because they are in a rebuilding phase ahead of the next World Championships.

“They have lost some of their more experienced players, but they have always been unpredictable - either very good or very bad.

“They play a very good defensive game and the way they will play against us will depend on how they get on in their first game against Holland.

“If Holland beat them very badly, they will have to come out fighting against us and that may give our players a lot of space. I believe our forwards are faster than their defenders, so from that point of view it looks very good.

“I think we have a real good chance against Spain as well as France and if we beat both of them, then we will have achieved our aim of making the semi-finals. That is what I am really looking for because it would take off a lot of pressure.”

It goes unsaid that the Irish would not be expected to beat Kuper’s native Holland (who are the reigning champions) in their final pool game at 7pm on Wednesday, but depending on what happens in the other pool, where England, Germany, Ukraine and Scotland compete against each other, the Irish seem most likely to face either the English or the Germans if they make the semi-finals.

Despite oft-spoken frustrations about the level of preparedness of players coming into squads because of the systems in Ireland - “players coming into practically every other national squad just have to take one step higher, while Irish players have to take five steps higher” - Kuper knows Ireland have improved over the years and the coming seven days will give them the chance to show it.

They may not be travelling far, but they may well be entering uncharted waters.