Ireland Secured An Important 1-0 Win Over Japan Today In Their Final Champions Challenge

Ireland secured an important 1-0 win over Japan today in their final Champions Challenge I pool match taking place in Kuantan, Malaysia.

After a quiet affair in the first half where teams cancelled each other out with little goal scoring opportunity it was all drama in the second half - where Ireland's net keeper David Harte was called into action to save a penalty stroke in the 55th minute which would have given the Japanese a 1-0 lead but Harte gets his stick to defelect Kei Kawakami's shot to keep the sides at nil all.

Despite securing three penalty corners it was Alan Sothern's open play skill that netted Ireland the only goal of the day in the 66th minute.

Japan fought to the end with Ippei Fujimoto almost causing an Irish upset in the last minute of the match but world class keeper David Harte was once again in impressive form keeping the sheet clean and Ireland closed out the match with an important 1-0 win.

Ireland's final pool standing which will determine who they meet in the quarter finals will be known when Pool A completes the rounds stages with New Zealand against Poland which is up next.

Commenting Coach Fulton was pleased his team secured the three points. "I am very proud of the team's performance, we stuck to the game plan in what was a tough match, we created important chances and in the end we were able to execute to secure what was an important goal. We didn't play as well as we would have liked but we are a young team up front and this achieves our goal of finishing in the top 3 in the pool stages" (Ireland finish in 3rd place in the pool stages with the potential to move into 2nd depending on the result of NZ v Poland in the next match - to determine who they meet in the quarter final stages).
Fulton went on to commend keeper Harte "David Harte got man of the match, he wasn't overly busy during the match but the two saves he had to make were huge including a penalty stroke."