Turning green dreams into Rio reality

David Harte remembers the last time hockey found its way into the national sporting consciousness. His emotions were among those laid bare to the nation as the cruellest of near misses led the sports bulletins in March, 2012.

The bandwagon ground to a halt and most moved on, but for Ireland’s men’s hockey team the pain of losing the final of an Olympic qualification tournament 3-2 to Korea — the winner coming with seven seconds remaining in front of a stunned Belfield — would last much longer.

“We didn’t actually debrief the 2012 failure until early 2014, when Craig Fulton came on board as coach,” says Cork native Harte, Ireland’s goalkeeper and captain.