Turning Japanese helps Ireland into last four

A relieved Paul Revington labelled his side’s performance “a damn sight better than yesterday” after watching his side trounce top seeds Japan 3-0 to qualify for the Champions Challenge II semi-finals with a game to spare last night. A vastly improved Ireland performance saw Cork C of I’s John Jermyn — a hat-trick hero in Monday’s 3-0 defeat of Chile — once again act as architect-in-chief, burying low penalty corners in the 11th and 18th minute. Mikey Watt rounded off a superb breakaway to complete the rout five minutes before half-time.

Indeed, the former Instonians man – who is on his way to the Dragons in Belgium next term – caused untold problems up front alongside Eugene Magee and Mitch Darling, as Ireland responded to Revington’s calls for improvement by dropping their error count to virtually zero. Japan employed a higher press in the second half in an attempt to stifle the Irish, and Jermyn’s importance to the side at corner time was emphasised by the fact that three went begging while he was stationed on the bench. Meanwhile, Poland qualified from the group too courtesy of a 3-1 win over Chile. Revington said: “It was a damn sight better than yesterday (against Chile). This should be a standard performance. If we perform well we should be scoring five or six goals, in my opinion in games like this, but this is the kind of performance I expect.” Meanwhile, Irish men’s hockey got a further boost yesterday with news of a 70,000 grant from the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) in its campaign for qualification for the 2012 Games in London. The OCI financial support aims to enhance the team’s effort at the Champions Challenge Cup in Dublin, the European Championships in Wales and a World Cup qualifying tournament later this year. President of the OCI president Pat Hickey said: “The Olympic Council has negotiated this special team sport grant through an International Olympic Solidarity programme in order to assist the Irish Hockey Association’s goal of qualifying an Irish men’s team for the first time at an Olympic Games.” Thanks to Stephen Findlater and Colm O’Connor for info