Ireland below standards in World Cup loss to Scotland

Ireland coach Gareth Grundie described his side's performance in the 2-1 defeat by Scotland as "not to the standard we'd set ourselves".

With an opportunity to take a big step towards a top-10 finish in the World Cup with victory against a side ranked four places below them in the rankings, Ireland produced their worst performance of the tournament.

It was way below the level they'd shown when pushing the third-best side in the world, Belgium, to the brink of elimination in the Pool stages, as Scotland deserved the success.

They had taken a first-quarter lead through Ellie Mackenzie with Ireland equalising before half-time with a goal from Emily Kealy.

Charlotte Watson's superb strike in the third quarter condemned Ireland to defeat.

Ireland face the USA on Monday in their final crossover game, which will decide their placing in the final match.

Scotland won six penalty corners in the opening six minutes of the game and finally converted one when Mackenzie deflected the ball past Lizzie Murphy.

Ireland were lucky to only be one goal behind but, from one of their rare forays into the Scottish circle, they equalised when Christina Hamill's shot was saved, but Kealy pounced on the rebound.

Ireland were better in the second half and Kealy came close to scoring a second, but they wasted a couple of penalty corners chances and Watson's superb strike, high into the net, put them on the back foot again.

Grundie said: "We've had a big push over the last year in terms of consistency, and the first half today was a big step backwards.

"We gave ourselves a job to do. Second half, we certainly improved and had opportunities, but we put ourselves under pressure with the first-half performance, which, as I say, wasn't of the standard that we'd expect from ourselves."

Irish captain Sarah Hawkshaw added: "I think we were definitely disappointed with our first-half performance. We were slow to get out of the blocks, for sure, and Scotland came at us really, really hard.

"They are a quality side, you know, there's no doubt about that, but, it was a tired start to the game for us.

"We started to step out, gave ourselves opportunities. We probably needed winning a few more corners to give us more, with them being such a strength for us."

Is there a trend that Ireland can raise their game against top-six teams in the world but struggle to find that level of performance against sides ranked below them?

Last year at the European Championships, they lost to France, at the last World Cup they were beaten in the Pool stages by Chile.

But Hawkshaw disagreed as she said: "I think what we've shown in Nations Cups previously and World Cup qualifiers we showed against teams ranked below us that we are consistently performing.

"We're disappointed with that performance. It's something we've strived for as being more consistent throughout tournaments.

"So in one game in isolation, we're annoyed about how we started that, but I wouldn't say that's a trend for the current squad."

Coach Grundie admitted "it's definitely something that we have to look at" for Ireland to keep progressing.

"We had a big emphasis this year in terms of consistency, and that needs to be the focus still going forward," he added.

"Consistency in terms of how we train, how we play every game. Performances are certainly improving, the consistency is getting better, but there's still room to improve."

With seeding for next year’s EuroHockey championships, which have a knock-on effect for Olympic qualification at LA 2028, there is still an awful lot riding on where and how Ireland finish this World Cup.