Men’s EuroHockey U21 Championship II-A (Poznan, France)
Ireland produced a magnificent seven to win the men’s EuroHockey U21 Championship II-A gold, earning promotion and a spot at next year’s Junior World Cup.
Needing a draw for the title against Ukraine, they were held in the first quarter but soon cut loose with Sam Dale scoring twice before half-time with Jake Fulton also cashing in.
Dale completed his hat trick in the second half while Toby O’Connell extended his lead at the top of the goalscoring charts with two more, ending with 10 in total. Matthew McKee got the other in a 7-0 success.
Reflecting on the win, Irish captain Ryan Williams is thrilled to be back at the Junior World Cup, saying: “It’s really enjoyable that we can look forward to the World Cup next year and the European Championship, it will be unreal to play against some of the best teams in Europe.
“We want to be there in two years’ time definitely to compete. We’ve got a young team, so a lot of us will be playing in the World Cup next year.”
Reflecting on the event in Poznan, he added it was a job well done: “We knew coming into it that we might be the favourites.
“We knew we might have a lot of the ball so we did a lot of individual work around how to play through teams on the ball and just be confident in ourselves.
“We managed to get the win, undefeated this tournament so delighted with the team and delighted with the boys.”
Italy ended in second place with a 5-2 win over Poland; they built a five-goal advantage via Valerio Iossa, Jonas Carelli (two), Giacomo Palombi and Giovanni Faggian before Poland got two back in the last 16 minutes.
Croatia closed out their competition with two wins from two with three late goals providing them with a 6-3 win over Lithuania.
Dominykas Vaikenas gave Lithuania an early lead; Croatia responded with the next three goals only for their opponents to reply in kind and make it 3-3 at half-time.
But Andrej Zidanić completed a hat trick with two goals in the 51st minute and Josip Aicinger weighed with another to finish with a flourish.
Player of the tournament: Francesco Atzori (Italy)
Goalkeeper of the tournament: Maksymilian Pawlak (Poland)
Top goalscorer: Toby O’Connell (Ireland) – 10 goals
Final standings:
- Ireland
- Italy
- Poland
- Croatia
- Ukraine
- Lithuania
