HOCKEY:Ireland completed their 10-day tour of South Africa with a much improved display in a scoreless draw with their hosts on Saturday, but while encouraged by the performance coach Gene Muller must have concerns about his team's struggle for goals having failed to score in their four games against the South Africans.
Defensively, though, they made good progress after losing their opening game 4-0, going down just 1-0 in the next two games before Saturday's clean sheet, due in no small part to Mary Goode's goalkeeping.
Louisa Moore and Niamh Small won their first caps in Friday's match, which was decided by Tarryn Bright's reverse-stick shot eight minutes from time, with Munster's Julia O'Halloran once again making an impression in the final game.
If goals were hard to come by for Ireland they came in floods for Ulster at the under-21 interprovincial tournament in which they simply crushed the opposition. The defending champions, coached by Graham Quincey, beat Connacht 11-0 in their opening game and then, remarkably, had three successive 7-0 wins over South East, Munster and Leinster.
The margin of victory over a gifted Leinster side was particularly striking, not least because they had won all three of their games, without conceding a goal, before meeting the hosts in the tournament decider.
Megan Frazer and Alex Speers scored two apiece, bringing their tallies to nine and seven, respectively, in the four games. Munster's 3-1 defeat of South-East gave them a third place finish.
