Ireland square series with win over Scotland

Goals from Nicola Evans and Emily Beatty gave Ireland a comfortable 2-0 win over Scotland Senior Women at the Glasgow National Hockey Centre today.

The result means the three match series finishes 1-1 after yesterday’s win for Scotland and Monday’s draw between the two sides.

Scotland Senior Women Head Gordon Shepherd, said, “The performance was better than yesterday, despite the result. If we’d been offered a tied series before the three matches, I would have accepted that as we had a number of relatively inexperienced players selected for the series. The series has been positive because these players were given an opportunity to play at this level and therefore it was a useful exercise.”

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(Scotland Head Coach Gordon Shepherd offers new cap Heather Lang advice. Photo Credit: Duncan Gray)

Scotland goalkeeper Nicki Cochrane was called upon to make a fantastic save from Shirley McCay’s penalty corner effort early in the proceedings, diving low to her right to prevent the opening goal.

Ireland continued to pressurise the home defence and were rewarded for their efforts with a goal in the 15th minute when Nicola Evans was afforded enough space on the right of the circle to smash the ball into left corner with a reverse stick shot.

As the visitors made regular incursions into Scottish territory, opportunities fell to Chloe Brown, Cliodhna Sargent and Megan Frazer to extend Ireland’s lead before the end of the first half, but Cochrane was on hand to keep her side in the contest with a number of vital stops.

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(Susan McGilveray in action against Ireland. Photo Credit: Duncan Gray)

Ten minutes into the second half, Ireland had the ball in the net but umpire Sarah Wilson correctly ruled out the goal for the ball reaching a dangerous height.

A goal-line clearance from Emily Newlands denied Nicola Evans in the 49th minute, before Naomi Carroll went desperately close when her diving effort rolled narrowly wide of the right hand post.

However, the Irish did not have to wait much longer to kill off the contest, a devastating counter-attack finding Emily Beatty in acres of space on the right, the attacker advancing into the scoring circle to coolly slot the ball past Cochrane.

Another goal-line clearance, this time from Kareena Marshall, prevented a third Ireland goal five minutes from full-time, while Cochrane stopped Brown from registering on the score-sheet in the last action of the match.

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(Karin Belch advances into Irish territory during today’s international. Photo Credit: Duncan Gray)

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