Muller is expecting some real competitive hockey

WITH the majority of his international squad in action, Irish senior women’s coach Gene Muller is expecting this weekend’s ESB Club Championships to throw up some seriously competitive hockey.

And, although he says he is not expecting the event to unearth any new playing gems for him to consider ahead of his side’s preparations for the European Championships in August, he is looking to the tournament to confirm which players are bang in form.

“This is different from international hockey obviously, but it still serves a very useful purpose. It is unlikely that anyone will play themselves into contention as a result of how they play this weekend – or that someone will come from nowhere.

“But the tournament serves a very useful purpose in that conditions closely mimic those of international competitions and that is good for the players because continual competition of this nature is very rare here in Ireland.”

Muller, who took over the reins of the Irish team from Riet Kuper at the start of the season, says he is happy with the fact that the best players in the country will be involved this weekend.

This weekend’s action sees Pegasus, Hermes, Cork Church of Ireland and Ballymoney competing for honours in Pool A, while Pool B will be fought out between Loreto, Cork Harlequins, Old Alex and Randalstown.

Muller says that, on paper, it is very difficult to separate most of these teams simply because they have their own strengths and weaknesses, but he is looking forward to seeing top line players in action in this sort of environment.

“It will be good for me to confirm that certain players are playing well and also good to see who may not be – that will be informative. But it will be in the heat of international competition that they will prove themselves.”

Ahead of the European Championships in Manchester in August, Muller says he is happy with the way the Irish side has been coming along and he thinks that preparation thus far has been good.

“The side has not really been tested yet internationally because in the first phase of development we have been concentrating on playing teams who are in and around is in ranking terms.

“From here on in we will be ratcheting that up and taking on sides ranked higher than us and the first test of that will be when we take on Holland in Manchester in a few weeks time.

‘‘We have been working in what might be termed a ‘controlled exposure’ environment so far, but that will change.

“We are roughly where we expected to be but there is still a lot of work to do,” the coach said.