Irish don’t fear the unknown

MUCH in the same way as international soccer teams play to different patterns, so it is in world hockey and the Irish team attempting to qualify here for the World Cup finals in Germany next September, face a Japanese side today with a style alien to anything they are used to.

The Asians favour a fast-attacking style of play rather than the more cautious patterns adopted by the Irish.

Japan are going to pose some new challenges, but for captain Paddy Brown the threats are no greater than the Irish faced when drawing 2-2 with mighty Pakistan on Wednesday.

“We showed against Pakistan we have the discipline to cope with a style of play different from what we might be used to,” Brown said last night.

“Playing with that level of discipline is a big step forward for us and tactically the way we played against Pakistan, with a very tight half-court defensive set up with an in-built counter-attacking structure, took a lot of work.”

He stressed that how Ireland managed to cope with adversity in games such as that with Japan would define their tournament and he felt his side were capable of coping with whatever was thrown at them.

“Wednesday was slightly strange in that we had to play Pakistan and get a result. We had a lot of belief in ourselves and we worked very hard - both mentally and physically - to achieve what we did. There was no real elation in the dressing room afterwards because obviously we were still waiting to see how the game between Canada and Egypt panned out and we were pretty drained. But it was a major advance for us to get the result we did.”

Brown went on: “We are effectively now into a new tournament and we have to beat Japan to have a chance of winning the final qualification slot. It is a crucial game, but everyone is fit and healthy and we have learned many lessons in what for most of us has been our first major international tournament.

“We go into this game with belief in ourselves and confident that some of the negative experiences we’ve run into here in China are lessons we can take forward. We’ve learned to be more disciplined and we’re undoubtedly getting better,” he maintained.

As one of the more experienced members of the Irish squad, with his 109 caps making him the fifth most capped player to have represented Ireland, Brown has been around the block, but as he points out, top line international experience is still lacking amongst the current team.

“We are a fairly young side, but there are a lot of guys with 50, 60 or 70 caps and we have done a lot of work to get here. OK, we’ve made mistakes, but we’ve learned quickly on what has been a very steep uphill learning curve.

“We have played many teams over recent months who have asked different questions of us and from that point of view we have nothing to fear from Japan. In fact, in some ways it is easier to prepare for something unknown, something fresh. It certainly makes it a bit more exciting for our guys.”

The Belfast lawyer, who has obviously learned a thing or two in leadership terms from his boss, rugby legend Mike Gibson, sees another motivating factor in beating the Japanese in the possibility of meeting Belgium in the game which will decide the final World Cup qualifying place.

The Belgians play France in the other game in the fourth to eighth place cross-overs here today and Ireland will play the winner if they beat Japan.

“We’d certainly like another crack at them,” he says quietly, leaving unsaid the definite feeling that after their disappointing 1-0 loss to the Belgians in the Pool stages, the Irish have unfinished business here in China.