Hockey World Cup final: An inspiring team that did us all proud

Ireland’s sports shops may not enjoy the great run on hockey sticks that might have materialised had Ireland met just a good team in yesterday afternoon’s World Cup final in London.

However, the steely Irish women met, by a distance, the best team in the world. Holland has won eight of the 14 World Cups held to date and, yesterday, they had the luxury of fielding the tournament’s five top-scorers. Not even the all-conquering All Blacks can match that record. Indeed, they don’t come even close.

Despite their heroics, and especially their resilience, the form book was right again and the Irish players and inspiring backroom staff will have to settle for the satisfaction of being part of the very first Irish team to reach their sport’s World Cup final. That was, by any criteria, a life-defining achievement.

That may seem scant consolation this morning, but it is more than enough, far, far more than enough, for our ladies’ hockey team, and all those involved with it, to win a unique place in the pantheon of Irish sport. They went where no Irish team had gone before — but may go again. If there is any doubt about that assessment, the fact that they were amateurs challenging experienced professionals, and had to pay for the privilege of representing the 32 counties of Ireland, must scupper that doubt.

At a moment like this, it is all too easy to get lost in hyperbole, to drown in swelling national pride, but if there is any regret, it must be that there was such a short time to wallow in Saturday’s semi-final win, before yesterday’s 6-0 defeat by Holland. Even that semi-final surpassed anything achieved by an Irish team.

This wonderful team’s thoughts will turn to the Tokyo Olympics now, and it would be something just short of criminal if their value to the island was not recognised and expressed in the most practical way — improved funding.

There is another World Cup in Japan, in the interim, and our hockey team has shown what can be achieved. They raised the bar in an unprecedented way and offered the kind of inspiration that must move Irish sport onto a higher plane.