THIS CLASS SOLO effort from Nicola Daly was the icing on the cake for Ireland today, who ran out 4-1 winners over South Africa in Valencia.
And Nikki Evans’ hit a hat trick in the opening game of their Hockey World League semi-final. It secured an excellent victory over a higher-ranked side in the world rankings – Ireland are 14th..
“It was fantastic,” captain Megan Frazer said. “It was a perfectly executed game-plan that inspired the result.”
The result puts Ireland in great shape to advance to one of the four quarter-final places from their initial five-team group. They are back in action tomorrow at 2pm Irish time against European champions Germany.
The tournament acts as the main event for Olympic qualification.
Ireland: E Gray, C Sargent, E Smyth, K Mullan, S McCay, M Frazer, A Connery, L Colvin, N Daly, H Matthews, A O’Flanagan
Subs: Y O’Byrne, N Evans, G Pinder, C Watkins, K Dillon, A Meeke, A McFerran
