Hockey – Scots improve to draw with Ireland

Scotland women bounced back from their 4-0 defeat on Saturday to draw 1-1 with Ireland in Belfast in an entertaining second match of a two game series.

Game two saw a much improved Scotland performance and head coach, Chris Duncan, said: “This was night and day from Saturday.”

Both sides are building towards the EuroHockey Championships in Germany this summer and Scotland came out flying in Sunday’s game, scoring 45 seconds into the contest.

University of Edinburgh player Katie Robertson beat two on the left before picking out university team-mate Eve Pearson (pictured left by Nigel Duncan) in the circle. She converted.

Goalkeeper Jess Buchanan made some solid stops and, defensively, the Tartan Hearts looked composed and solid but, with six minutes left, Ireland found an equaliser when a penalty corner routine was deflected past Buchanan.

Duncan said: “It was a good performance. We were controlled and professional and it was great to see our defensive identity on show. It’s also very pleasing to see the problems we caused in attack.

“We tired towards the end and lost the equaliser. On another day it could have been a win but we stepped up our performance and it puts us in a nice place to build from.”