Green Army Beat Spain / Men Lose to Malaysia

The Electric Ireland Irish Senior Women's Squad beat Spain 1-0 today courtesy of Anna O'Flanagan's 3rd goal for the Green Army as Ireland wrapped up their training camp and their preparations for the upcoming FIH World League 2. The two sides had met twice already this week with Spain winning the first two encounters by score lines of 2-0 and 2-1.
Irish Coach, Darren Smith, continued to use his full squad and again made 5 changes to his starting XI today with Smithwick, Sargent, Symmons, Smith & Waktins all returning to the side.
The two teams again played out a hotly contested fixture today and there was little to separate both sides in the first period of play. Ireland led by Captain Alex Speers, Ireland pressed the Spaniards well in the first half and were unlucky to not take the lead through first Katie Mullan and then Audrey O'Flynn from a penalty corner in the 32nd minute.

Ireland began the 2nd half where they left off and created some good early opportunities through O'Flanagan, Jacob & Smyth which the Spanish managed to clear. It wasn't all one way traffic though with Spain forcing a couple of penalty corners and the Green Army were called upon to defend them effectively with Nicola Gray and 2nd half keeper, Emma Gray making important blocks and saves respectively to keep the score line at 0-0.

22 minutes into the 2nd half and Ireland finally took the lead following great work from Niamh Small to force a penalty corner. From the resulting set play, Nicola Gray found Anna O'Flanagan who diverted the ball home to give Ireland a deserved 1-0 lead. Ireland had opportunities to extend the lead further following great play from Speers, Symth & Daly.

There was still plenty of work for the Green Army to do defensively also before a hard earned victory could be put in the books and Cliodhna Sargent & Emma Gray in particular made important blocks to keep the lead intact. Ireland held on for the remainder of the game though and claimed the first victory for new coach, Darren Smith.

Speaking following his first victory as Irish Coach, Darren Smith said 'We continued our impressive play from Saturday's match, but this time we got our reward. Despite facing Spain's strongest eleven from the off, we outplayed them with 34 circle entries and a much higher number of goalscoring opportunities. I have been very impressed by the girls application over the three matches'

Ireland return home from Spain later today but will return to Valencia in two weeks' time and will once again meet hosts Spain on 2nd March 2013 at World League 2

Starting XI: Smithwick, Atcheler, Sargent, N Gray, O'Flynn, Watkins, Symmons, Smyth, Jacob, Speers O'Flanagan