Ireland head coach Gareth Grundie hopes the weight of expectation on hosts Germany will favour his side when the teams meet in what is expected to turn out a pool decider for second spot at the upcoming EuroHockey Championships in Monchengladbach, which get under way on Friday.

Currently ranked 11th in the world, Grundie’s charges face a tough start to their campaign. They’ll compete in Pool A and open the eight-team tournament with a challenging match against the world’s top-ranked team, the Netherlands, on Saturday.

The schedule for the squad continues with matches against France (world ranking 19) and Germany (world ranking 6).

Belfast native Grundie replaced Sean Dancer in the hot seat last October, with the latter stepping down in March of 2024 after the team narrowly failed to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

As interim head coach in 2019, Grundie successfully guided the squad through critical qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics, a first in the team’s history.

Prior to taking the reins at Ireland, he was at the helm of the Czech Republic, leading them to a silver medal in Division 2 of the European Championships and to bronze at the Indoor World Cup, and up to second in the world indoor rankings.

“I’m not long in as head coach, but I was here for a few years as assistant coach, so it was easy to settle back in,” Grundie told RTÉ Sport in the aftermath of last week’s 2-1 series win in Dublin over a Spain outfit ranked seventh in the world.

“I think we’ve probably made a few changes to the playing style since the start of the year and I think we’re starting to see that little bit more control on the games.

“We’ll take that into next week and see how we go.”

Of their series win in the capital against Spain, the head coach stressed the importance of the display over the result, adding: “It’s nice to get the win, it certainly builds a bit of confidence but I’m not that concerned about the result, it was more about the performance across all three games.

“Ten of the 12 quarters I thought we did very well. It certainly gives us something to build on next week.”

Ireland are set to compete in the FIH Pro League next season for the first time, and Grundie anticipates that competition as ideal in aiding his side’s development, even if it will come too late for the Euros.

“I think that [experience] is what Pro League will give us, going forward,” he said. “We’ve targeted that just to get those extra competitive games, extra caps, and just really building on the experience throughout the squad.

“We’re really lucky to have a few experienced players and they can really start to pass the knowledge on to the younger crew.”

The Netherlands lie in wait on Saturday, with Grundie aware of the task at hand, saying: “Starting the Europeans next week against Holland – they’re number one for a reason.

“It’ll be a tough challenge, but we’ll approach the group in a way to give ourselves the best opportunity going into the final group game against Germany.

“I think we will still go out and play, we still want to have a go at Holland, but we have to bare in mind the group set-up and how it sits, so against both times its giving us the best opportunity against Germany.

“There’s still a World Cup spot up for grabs, so the semi-finals are the target but at the minute, it’s one step at a time and give ourselves the best opportunity in Germany against the hosts, and certainly the pressure will be on them.”

Watch Netherlands v Ireland in the European Hockey Championships on Saturday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player