{"id":384873,"date":"2026-08-19T02:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T02:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/384873\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T02:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T02:36:19","slug":"ireland-men-secure-convincing-world-cup-victory-over-south-africa-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/384873\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland men secure convincing World Cup victory over South Africa \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ireland Men\u2019s Hockey team secured a 4-1 victory over South Africa, recording their first FIH Hockey World Cup victory since 1978.<\/p>\n

Having gone a goal down in the third quarter, Ireland turned the game around thanks to a Ben Walker goal, a brace of penalty corners from Lee Cole, and a finish in the final minutes from Sam Hyland to put the game beyond reach.<\/p>\n

In a must-win game for both sides to keep top-two hopes alive, South Africa took control with the first goal, a spectacular effort from Kenton Melville before Walker levelled.<\/p>\n

Cole added two while the icing on the cake came with a minute to play when Hyland was slapped home a fourth.<\/p>\n

\"PFL<\/a>\"Michael<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking after the game, Player of the Match Cole said: \u201cWe started a little bit slow, we improved but then found ourselves behind. We showed unbelievable character to come back and get a win. It\u2019s the stuff we dream of.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the performance of his fellow defenders, Cole said: \u201cI don\u2019t think we left a lot to be desired out there. Jaime Carr, Peter McKibbin; unbelievable. Everyone in our back four today were unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head Coach, Mark Tumilty added: \u201cGoing behind probably helped us. When we went behind we started to be more aggressive in our press, we stole a bit more ball and could play off that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows the character of the group to grind that result out. I am not convinced twelve months ago we would have.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result means Ireland keep themselves within the hunt for a top two finish in Pool C, with a draw against Spain on Thursday enough to see the side progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ireland Men\u2019s Hockey team secured a 4-1 victory over South Africa, recording their first FIH Hockey World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[52],"tags":[184161,184162,32954,131,165541,184163],"class_list":["post-384873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-africa","tag-field-hockey","tag-fih","tag-hockey","tag-south-africa","tag-womens-hockey","tag-world-cup-hockey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117119849922723074","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}