The Large, framed photograph of President Robert Mugabe looked down on one very agitated figure in the visitors' queue at Harare International Airport yesterday morning. Irish women's hockey coach Terry Gregg was a man in a hurry. After completing a 10-hour flight from London, a car was waiting to take him to his players' final training session ahead of today's opening match against India in the World Cup qualifying tournament.
Once Gregg signed the required immigration forms, he was on his way. Next in line were three Irish hockey reporters who took some time to decide whether to tick business or pleasure on their forms. A cloudless sky, temperatures in the high seventies, a bottle of the finest South African wine priced at under two punts? "Business" they lied. "In that case you will have to visit the Ministry for Foreign Affairs tomorrow morning to get a work permit," the official informed them. The recriminations began. "We should have told the truth," one of the hacks groaned. Too late. Today will be red tape day. Presumably the Irish hockey team won't be queuing for work permits today in down-town Harare, even if they are very definitely here on business.
Today's opening match against a skilful and pacey Indian team could prove crucial to Ireland's hopes of taking one of the top six places in the tournament, a standing they must achieve if they are to qualify for the World Cup finals in Utrecht next May.
Given the strength of the top-ranked teams in their pool - England and Canada - Gregg believes Ireland must achieve two victories from their matches against India, Japan and South Africa if they are to have a chance of taking that top sixth place in next week's play-off games for the final positions.
Gregg has kept faith with the starting line-up that beat Scotland and drew with Spain in Dublin last month, with Mary Logue and Jenny Burke set to continue their partnership in attack. Sarah Kelleher has recovered from a minor injury and will play in midfield - however, while the Slough player arrived in Harare last week, her custom-made hockey sticks disappeared somewhere en route - hopes that they may arrive in time for today's match are fading fast.
Meanwhile, the hosts, Zimbabwe, the tournament outsiders, have had a less-than-encouraging build-up to their opening match against Scotland tomorrow - they lost 12-0 and 9-0 to Spain and suffered two more 9-0 thrashings at the hands of the Australian under-21 team.
Their coach, Gavin Parker, continues to look on the bright side and is doing his best to encourage the locals, most of whom seem unaware that their city is hosting the event, to turn up in their numbers for the matches.
