Clincial Australia crush Ireland in FIH Pro League

Ireland 0-5 Australia

Ireland suffered another heavy defeat in the FIH Pro League after Mark Tumilty's side went down 5-0 to Australia in Bhubaneswar, India.

After opening with a 5-1 reversal to world number one side Netherlands, Ireland started the match well, dominating possession without creating any clear cut chances.

Both sides exchanged long corners early on without any reward as the sides remained deadlocked by the end of the first quarter.

Michael Robson was making his 150th international appearance and Ben Walker was back in the side having missed out on the Olympic qualification tournament in Valencia through injury, but it was the inexperienced Australian side that opened the scoring with a shot that was deflected past substitute goalkeeper James Milliken by Tom Craig in the 17th minute.

Craig had the ball in the net again four minutes later, but the umpire had already blown his whistle for a penalty corner.

The second goal arrived from that set-piece, converted by Jeremy Hayward. It would be a 3-0 lead by the half-time break when Flynn Ogilvie went down the right and found Craig, whose short pass to Beale was deflected to Ky Willott who scored past Milliken.

The Aussies dictated play in the third quarter and Nathan Ephraums capitalised on the pressure to make it 4-0.

A penalty corner and a Sean Murray shot that was saved was as close as Ireland came to scoring before Willott made it 5-0 in the 56th minute.

"It's a good learning for us," head coach Tumilty said afterwards. "Our basics let us down at times. We looked dangerous in the final third, but we needed to be more clinical in the attacking end of things and more switched on at the back end.

"You get punished at this level for the slightest errors and when