IRELAND HAVE FINISHED in 10th place at the Men’s Hockey World Cup in Belgium and the Netherlands, the country’s best-ever result at the tournament.

Mark Tumilty’s side were beaten 6-3 by New Zealand in their final ranking match, the ninth-/tenth-place playoff, on Friday afternoon.

Ireland found themselves a goal down early on at the Belfius Hockey Arena, Kane Russell opening the scoring from a penalty corner in the third minute, and Russell then repeated the trick with a second from another penalty corner in the final minutes of the first quarter.

George Baker scored New Zealand’s third in the 21st minute before Sam Lane made it 4-0 from a penalty corner five minutes later.

Ireland finally got off the mark in the third quarter through Gregory Williams before Lee Cole fired home a penalty stroke a minute later to cut the deficit to 4-2.

But that was as close as Ireland got, Lane and Finn Ward adding to New Zealand’s goal haul while at the other end, they withstood a string of Irish penalty corners before Jeremy Duncan converted a late consolation with the final play of the match.