Spain beat Ireland in five-goal thriller at World Cup

Ireland missed an opportunity to seize control of their World Cup future after losing 3-2 to Spain in a thrilling opening World Cup Pool C game in Wavre.

Ireland went behind twice after goals from Laia Vidosa and Sophia Keenan but fought back with Hannah McLoughlin and Niamh Carey scoring from penalty corners.

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Despite Gareth Grundie’s side being in the ascendancy, a superb strike from Xantal Gine with five minutes remaining broke Irish hearts.

“We were very disappointed with our second quarter of that game,” Irish captain Sarah Hawkshaw told BBC Sport NI.

“We thought we started quite well, and in the second half we dominated most of the momentum of the game. But the second quarter, we were disappointed with that. It put us on the back foot.

“Really happy with how we fought back and gave ourselves multiple opportunities to win that game, but disappointed with, you know, how we didn’t get over that line.”

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Ireland face New Zealand in must-win match

Ireland already faced an uphill task to reach the next phase of the tournament and will need to beat New Zealand, who lost to hosts Belgium, on Tuesday to have any chance.

Hawkshaw added that despite the pressure of their next match being crucial to their hopes of progressing, the side must “stick to our processes”.

“We have two more games in our group, and we know New Zealand lost their first game, so the next game surely is going to be a battle between the two of us,” she continued.

“It is a must-win. We’ve come into this with focusing on every game, one at a time, and not looking past it.

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“We’re going to be going for it in that next game, we have to. But we stick to our processes. We played three quarters of good hockey against Spain and are just fixing that last quarter.”