Irish Women no Longer to Travel to South Africa

Having monitored the situation over the previous weeks and given the escalation of measures being taken here in Ireland to reduce the spread of COVID-19, Hockey Ireland Irish Senior Women’s team management has taken the decision to cancel the women’s upcoming trip to South Africa.

The squad had originally been scheduled to travel to South Africa for warm-up matches against South Africa, England, and China early next week for a block of warm weather training and exposure to match play in conditions similar to those expected in Tokyo later this summer.

The squad will no longer be travelling to South Africa and will therefore fall under the Hockey Ireland COVID-19 policy guidelines which were issued to the Hockey Ireland community last night.

Commenting on the decision Hockey Ireland Performance Director, Adam Grainger, said: “After a robust and productive conversation with players and staff today, management have decided to cancel the Senior Women’s upcoming trip to Durban.

While it could be argued that the performance benefits still outweigh the risks of traveling to Durban, the concern expressed by players and staff combined with ‘Coronavirus unknowns’ made the decision to cancel this travel the best solution.

This decision was not taken lightly, and Hockey Ireland would like to thank the squad for their patience on this matter. We will now review and seek to amend the programme plan for the squad for the next few weeks.