Ireland will face Great Britain in the Softco Uncapped Series at Queen’s University Belfast later this month in their first international home matches since Olympic qualification in December 2019.
The games will be held on Saturday 13 March, Sunday 14 March, and Tuesday 16 March. BBC Sport NI will be broadcasting all 3 matches on bbc.co.uk/sportni Plus BBC iPlayer, while RTÉ will broadcast the match Sunday night live on RTÉ 2 with coverage starting at 4:30 PM.
Nigel Ringland will host BBC Sport NI’s coverage of the three games and join in comments by former Irish international player Alex Spears; While Evanne Ní Chuillin will present the RTÉ cover, accompanied by Cliodhna Sargent and Gillian Pinder in the studio, with comments from George Hamilton and Sarah Scott’s party.
The three-game series will bring serious international competition to Green Army before a busy summer. The Sean Dancer team will travel to Amsterdam in June to participate in the EuroHockey, which will be the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
The Irish are currently ranked eighth in the world and will face the Netherlands, Spain and Scotland in Group A of the tournament.
The silver medalists at the 2018 World Cup then travel to Tokyo after securing their place in the Olympics after defeating Canada 15 months ago.
Captain Katie Mulan said: “Looking back at the past 12 months, we are very excited to play these international matches on our home turf.”
“The team trained well throughout the day, as it appeared in our recent matches against Spain. It is a strong team and we have achieved two wins and two draws in all five friendly matches, which puts us in a position of confidence in our next training group.”
“These matches against GB will be an excellent preparation for Yoruhoki tournaments This summer before going to Tokyo. As the current Olympic gold medalist, GB is an experienced and strong team so this is a very good opportunity for us to put all the trainings into practice before this summer.
Find out more about: Great Britain, Hockey, Ireland, Olympic Games, Tokyo 2021, World Cup
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