Hockey – Scotland v Ireland – ‘The Celtic Series’, Match 1

Dominant Ireland go one-up in The Celtic Series.

Scotland’s and Ireland’s women played the first of three matches at the National Hockey Centre in Glasgow on Thursday night, with Scotland playing under ‘new management’ following the departure of, long-time head-coach, Gordon Shepherd.

Dubbed ‘The Celtic Series’, the evening began with a presentation to Robyn Collins to mark her 50^th cap, but that was to be one of the few highlights for Scotland on the night.

Both sides fielded a number of fairly new players – with Scotland’s ‘Edinburgh’ contribution down to Becky Merchant – but with Ireland off the World Cup, their players had a lot to prove. And this they did throughout the first half. Scotland made a few breaks into Irish territory, but never really threatened the area to any great degree.

Ireland, for their part, looked dangerous whenever they crossed the half way line. They continually threatened down their left flank and made the Scots’ defence earn their keep on several occasions. However, despite this, relative dominance, they had to settle for a single penalty corner, but the shot on goal was deflected wide by the advancing Colvin.

After the break, Scotland came more into the game and drove most of their attacks down the centre through, the hard-working Watson, but it was the Irish who looked more likely to get on the score board with two PC’s late in the third quarter, but neither could be converted.

The fourth and final quarter was much more of an end-to-end affair, but Scotland’s best chance of the match went begging when a diving Lanigan just failed to connect in the D.

Ireland won three PC’s in this period, but two failed to result in a goal – with no little thanks to Camlin in Scotland’s goal.

However, it was the third, five minutes from time that won the match, as Carroll netted from a deflected clearance to take a deserved win by one goal to nil.

Matches two and three of the three-match series are on Saturday and Sunday in Glasgow.

Images from the match will appear here over the next few days.