Men's Hockey: On Irish senior Cup weekend a number of players will have been interested in the Irish squad coach Dave Passmore selected for the forthcoming tour to South Africa. Building towards the World Cup qualifiers next April in China, those same players will have welcomed last week's announcement that hockey is to be one of the key sports focused in the initial phase of the development of the Abbotstown Sports Development Complex.
On the back of the Budget, the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue, gave the go-ahead for first phase of the development of the multi-sport facility in Dublin's north-west with hockey being the first sport selected for inclusion in the development, along with the country's 'big three' - GAA, soccer and rugby.
Included in the development plans are an international grade water-based hockey pitch, accommodation for up to 100 athletes, a full sports science/sports medicine unit and a cardio-vascular strength and conditioning unit.
The facility will allow the IHA to implement its high performance planning initiatives and will be important in the preparation of both men's and women's national teams for Beijing 2008 and London 2012, although obviously not for this World Cup campaign.
One of the reason's for hockey's inclusion with the 'big three' was the quality of the high performance plans that the IHA submitted to the Irish Sports Council in 2005.
The sport's current status and potential with regard to world rankings and participation volumes was also a factor.
"This is the best and most significant news we have had since I have been involved with the IHA and undoubtedly puts us in a completely different position when I sit to produce a revised high performance plan for Irish hockey," said men's coach Passmore.
Passmore has included a number of fresh faces that were not involved in last summer's Rome European Championship Trophy including Ronan Gormley, Charlie Henderson, John Jermyn, Eugene Magee, Mark Ruddle and Trinity's Phelie Maguire.
The Irish team will play matches in Potchesftroom from January 12th to 16th and then they will travel to Pretoria from the 16th to 22nd where they have two Tests against South Africa
"This is an ideal opportunity to develop ourselves technically, physically and mentally towards China," commented Passmore.
"Our priority will be to utilise the climate, to work hard on our technical and tactical preparation whilst further developing the physical aspects of our preparation."
He went on to say: "The matches are a good opportunity to measure ourselves against top-10 opposition but are not the major priority of the trip'.
"It will be good to see how the guys cope with a long demanding trip away and the pressures that these trips bring."
IRISH SQUAD: A Barbour, J Black, M Black, P Brown, K Burns, S Butler, M Gleghorne, R Gormley, C Henderson, D Hobbs, M Irwin, J Jermyn, I Lewers, P Maguire, M Raphael, M Ruddle, G Shaw, J Sherriff, B Waring. Coach: D Passmore. Manager: S Hiles. Reserves: S Nicholson, P Blakeney.
TOUR DATES: January 17th: Ireland v South Africa; 19th: Ireland v South Africa; 20th: Ireland v New South Wales; 21st: Ireland v New South Wales.
