Underdog mentality can fuel Olympic dream for Murray

Ireland captain Sean Murray is dreaming of the prospect of playing hockey for his country at this summer's Olympic Games in Paris, however, the former Lisnagarvey man is not looking beyond this month’s qualifiers in Spain.

Three places are up for grabs at this final qualification tournament in Valencia, which takes place between 13 and 21 January with Ireland eyeing up a place in the final, which would stamp their ticket to Paris.

"Olympics is the big one in hockey, it’s the dream and when you are young you want to play at the Olympic Games," said Murray, speaking at the squad training session at Lisnagarvey Hockey Club in County Down."

"We waited around since after Tokyo and now we are ready and want to make sure we qualify for Paris."

Two groups of four sees Ireland matched with Ukraine, Japan and the highly rated Belgians with the top two going through to the semi-finals.

The finalists will go straight to the Olympics, and they will be joined by the winner of the third place play-off.

"We'd be confident we can get the group off to a good start with a win against Ukraine," said Murray.

"Japan, we don't know too much about, [so] we will treat the Japan game as a must-win game. We know that they are experienced.

"And Belgium are the favourites, but we know that we can get at them," said Murray, who plays his club hockey in the Belgian league with Gantoise.

Spain and Korea will be expected to come through the other group and with both sides currently ranked higher than Ireland in the world standings, Murray is well aware that his side will have to earn their place in the top three to guarantee an Olympic berth.

And going to the tournament as underdogs is a tag that suits the current Ireland squad, and one that the team can use to