City plays part in historic netball success

The girls in green came home at the start of last week with silver medals having secured runners-up spot in the tournament for the first time ever after 32 years of competing in the annual event.

Northern Ireland clinched second spot with a nail-biting 49-47 win over Wales, with Larkfield captain Caroline O’Hanlon named player of the match for a typically inspired display in the centre of the court.

O’Hanlon’s clubmate Michelle Drayne really came of age at international level in this tournament, the Hillsborough girl – who has recently taken up her first teaching post in Essex – playing the entire game in the unaccustomed role of wing defence and doing herself proud.

It was a memorable weekend for 27-year-old Craigavon Hospital doctor O’Hanlon, who had marked her 50th cap for Northern Ireland the previous day by setting the team on course for a convincing victory over Scotland.

Deborah McCarthy, one of seven survivors from last year’s World Cup squad of 12, played that entire match as goalkeeper with new captain Gemma Gibney pushed out to the goal defence position.

With European player of 2010 O’Hanlon pulling the strings, Jill McIntosh’s team have impressively provided an encore to their heroics in Singapore last summer when Northern Ireland reached the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time.

Double World Cup winning Aussie McIntosh has since taken over as coach from Glenavy-based lecturer Elaine Rice, with Kingsway supremo Laura Montgomery as her assistant and this was a very encouraging first campaign at the helm.

The two women were delighted with the results and performances produced by the squad and the world ranking points secured have boosted Northern Ireland’s chances of qualifying for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

In addition to the silver medals, the girls in green came home with the bragging rights over their much better resourced Welsh and Scottish counterparts and having given perennial champions England a real scare for good measure.

Thrashed 87-16 by England last time the teams met, in the 2011 World Cup quarter-final, Northern Ireland came out all guns blazing in their Euro opener and scored the first five goals of the game against their shell-shocked hosts.

Mighty England, who went on to take the title for a 12th consecutive time, had restored order in edging ahead by the end of the first quarter but a final scoreline of 69-54 was very respectable against the nation ranked third in the world.

Rather than going for broke in chasing an improbable victory, the pragmatic McIntosh had substituted several leading lights in the second half with an eye on the more meaningful contests against Scotland and Wales on subsequent days.

Likewise when Northern Ireland imperiously piled up a 16-goal half-time lead against the Scots, the coach withdrew her big guns – including captain Gibney and star turn O’Hanlon – to conserve their energy ahead of the Welsh showdown.

With Northern Ireland fielding only two first choice players in the final quarter, the Scots closed the gap a little but hadn’t even the consolation of reducing the margin of their defeat to single-figure proportions.

O’Hanlon had spoken ahead of the tournament of the hunger within the squad to make fresh history rather than living off their World Cup memories and the ambitious words were backed up with actions.

In the final fixture last year at Antrim Forum, Wales had snatched a dramatic draw courtesy of a late fightback but this time although the game followed a similar pattern, the greens – showing true Sheffield steel – were not to be denied.