Belgium 5 defeated Ireland 1
Goals: BEL - Lucyx 3, P.Goldberg, L. Van de Weighe; IRE - Jermyn
The Irish men got off to a poor start in their two match series against Belgium in Brussels and found themselves struggling to keep up with the tempo set by their hosts in a 5-1 loss.
While the opening exchanges were evenly contested, Belgium took control of the match and after 12 minutes Max Lucyx converted a penalty corner to give them the lead and five minutes later doubled the advantage with soft penalty corner.
The Belgium dominance continued as the Irish players struggled to lift themselves from domestic pace to a full international and Phillippe Goldberg showed no hesitation as he added number three before half time.
The second half performance was a significant improvement as Ireland began to find their feet and control the game creating chances of their own as Mark Gleghorne went close with a deflection and on 60m Nicholson and Magee combined well to set up John Jermyn to score and reduce arrears to 3-1.
However, with five minutes to go, Irish concentration slipped and Belgium's Lucyx completed his hat trick following up a rebound after a good initial save from second half sub Gareth Lennox. In injury time, Loic van de Weighe scored to leave the final score line 5-1.
While the second half performance was pleasing for coach Dave Passmore given the inexperienced side missing half a dozen regulars, the pedestrian opening pace similar to the England game was of concern as the Irish players failed to make the step up from domestic standard to international quickly enough.
These games will show the players what is required of them if they wish to compete at this level and it was encouraging that two of the best performances in the green shirt were from two of the younger players in Eugene Magee and debutant Peter Blakeney.
