The Irish Ladies Hockey Union may well prefer to turn to pillars of salt than adopt Aussie tactics to promote their sport.

"See women in short skirts" was the unusual sales pitch for the Champions Trophy competition in Brisbane. Feeeling that the poster message might not have gotten across with short skirts, the words "See women belting the crap out of little white balls" was there in even larger letters.

The ploy is part of a campaign to stimulate interest in the sport in the run-in to next year's Olympics. The Australians are the current world and Olympic champions and are the outstanding team in women's hockey.

A few weeks previously the Hockeyroos decided to pose "tastefully" for a men's magazine FHM and four of the players, Juliet Haslam, Bianca Langham, Kristen Towers and Louise Dobson, took off their kit and thought of the flag. Furthermore, 22-year-old winger Nikki Mott turned up in the pages of the Brisbane Courier with a hockey stick covering all the appropriate areas to keep it a family newspaper.