Hockey now has that opportunity again with the men’s team not only heading to Paris for the Olympics but before that they’ll make their FIH Pro League debut next month in India.
They will be facing the very best sides in the world between February and May and, while there may be some painful defeats, there may also be some significant wins. At the very least, the Irish players will be exposed to the best in the world which will only serve as an excellent learning process even before Paris.
The women will take a while to get over the enormous disappointment of missing out. As someone who went through the same agony four years ago, Tumilty offered this advice:
“It’s a difficult thing to process. High performance is difficult as well. It’s also because we focus so much on the Olympic cycle.
“I’m not a great advocate of us focusing so much on the cycle. I think we just try to be the best that we can be and if that fits within a cycle or doesn’t fit within a cycle, that’s grand.
“From my point of view, always get back on the bike, let’s go again, let’s get back on the hockey pitch. And I even think for some of the girls, just get back into your club hockey and be in an environment where it’s fun, it’s not as high pressure and then make the decision that, ‘you know what, I’m not going to be here again and I’m not going to have that disappointment again’.
“And it’s not that they did anything wrong but it’s tough in high performance sport. We got across the line, they did the last time, they got into the shootout and we didn’t.
“I think there are challenges and our challenges include getting there without those narrow margins. I think the goal for Hockey Ireland is that both teams consistently get to major tournaments, World Cups and Olympic Games.”
The women will next compete in June in the Nations Cup when, based on their performances of this week and the opposition they’ll face, they will have a great chance of gaining promotion to the Pro League which would be a huge step forward in their development.
While those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, there is plenty of optimism that Irish hockey has learnt from the past and, having come so close to getting both teams at an Olympics for the first time, there is a real chance it can happen in Los Angeles in 2028.
And hopefully without a shootout…
