Ireland open their Olympic Qualifying campaign against India in Milton Keynes today with coach Riet Kuper confident her team are in the best form of her two-year reign.
Only one of the other nine competing nations (Japan) is ranked below Ireland. At the Atlanta Games the USA, Germany and Spain finished fifth, sixth and eighth respectively, with the Germans taking bronze at the 1998 World Cup.
That is the size of the task that faces them here, but four wins and two draws in their final six warm-up games send them into the tournament with the belief that they are capable of causing an upset or two.
Realistically, Ireland's best hope of taking one of the five qualifying places is by finishing third in their pool and winning through to the fifth-sixth place play-off.
To do that they will have to finish above the USA and India in Pool A, with Germany and Spain likely to fill the top two places.
Rank outsiders Japan produced a major upset yesterday when they beat New Zealand, sixth at the last World Cup, 4-0 in their Pool B match.
However, there were no surprises in the opening Pool A games. Germany recovered from going a goal down to beat the USA 4-1. Spain, with the help of two penalty strokes, beat India 3-1. When they last met in the opening match of the 1997 World Cup Qualifier India beat Ireland 1-0. Though, if the Irish rugby team can win in Paris then maybe anything's possible, like the women's hockey team qualifying for the Olympic Games.
"True enough," agreed Karen Humphreys. And if Ireland are awarded a late penalty to clinch victory over India today would she be prepared to take it?
"No thank you very much," she said, preferring to leave this match-winning-penalty-taking business to big brother David.
RESULTS - Pool A: Spain 3, India 1; Germany 4, USA 1. Pool B: China 3, Russia 1; Japan 4, New Zealand 0.
TODAY - Pool A: Ireland v India, 12.0; Spain v Germany, 2.0. Pool B: Britain v Russia, 4.0; China v New Zealand, 6.0. TOMORROW - Pool A: Ireland v USA, 2.0. Pool B: Britain v Japan, 4.0. IRISH SQUAD: A Platt, L McVicker (both Ballymoney), T Browne, D Sixsmith, M Logue (capt), C Carey, J Burke (all Hermes), L Caul- field (Trinity), A Thompson, C McMahon, K Mills, K Humphreys (all Pegasus), R Kohler, K O'Brien (both Harlequins), S Parkhill (Grange Edinburgh Ladies), L Brown (Sutton Coldfield), J Orbinson (Portadown), C O'Kelly (Loreto).
