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Ireland 1 Scotland 0
She was no stranger to scoring goals in her days playing Gaelic football and camogie for Clare, nor indeed during her time as an underage soccer international, but few can have been as significant as the one Naomi Carroll put past Scotland in Amsterdam on Monday.
The Catholic Institute winger broke the deadlock in the 46th minute with what proved to be the only goal of a frustrating game for Ireland, who struggled to break down a dogged Scottish side that came agonisingly close to an equaliser with 30 seconds to go when they fired just wide from a penalty corner.
Ireland survived, though, the win keeping alive their hopes of reaching the semi-finals of the EuroHockey Championships for the first time.
Their meeting with Spain on Wednesday will decide which of the two nations reaches the last four of the tournament, as well as securing automatic qualification for the 2022 World Cup. Spain play the Netherlands on Monday evening , the outcome of that game determining exactly what Ireland will require on Wednesday.

Ireland’s Deirdre Duke in action during the game against Scotland. Photograph: Frank Uijlenbroek/Inpho


While Ireland had two comfortable wins – 4-1 and 5-1 – when the teams met in Belfast last month, they were facing a much strengthened Scotland this time around with Charlotte Watson, Sarah Robertson and Amy Costello all available again having been on duty with the British Olympic squad.
Goalkeeper Amy Gibson also missed the Belfast games and she showed her quality as early as the second minute when she smothered Anna O’Flanagan’s effort after she had been set up by Carroll.
Later in the quarter Gibson made a smart double save from Nikki Evans who was making her 200th appearance for Ireland, the sixth player after Nikki Symmons and Cliodhna Sargent, both since retired, and Evans’s team-mates Shirley McCay, Chloe Watkins and O’Flanagan to have reached the mark.
A string of chances went abegging for Sean Dancer’s side in those opening two quarters, Ireland well on top throughout, but Scotland grew in confidence and come the third quarter began to trouble their opponents with speedy counterattacks.
Carroll, though, steadied Irish nerves early in the fourth quarter when she fired home a rebound from the Scottish goalkeeper after Róisín Upton’s drag from a penalty corner had been blocked. Nervy moments followed, not least when captain Katie Mullan was sin-binned, leaving Ireland to see out the final three minutes of the game with 10 players.
But they held on, and must now recharge their batteries ahead of that Spanish challenge. There’s plenty to work on too ahead of the game, not least their penalty corners which largely misfired against the Scots, as Dancer conceded afterwards. The prize for getting it right is, though, immense.
IRELAND: A McFerran, R Upton, N Evans, K Mullan (capt), S McCay, L Tice, N Carroll, H McLoughlin, L Holden, S Hawkshaw, A O’Flanagan. Subs: L Murphy, M Carey, M Frazer, C Watkins, N Daly, H Matthews, D Duke.
SCOTLAND: A Gibson, J Eadie, L Swanson, B Ward, A Costello, S Robertson, C Watson, S Jamieson, E Dark, K Holmes, R Condie (capt). Subs: N Cochrane, L Campbell, M Bell, F Semple, B Shields, R Collins, F Burnet.
Umpires: S Bockelmann (Ger), I Makar (Cro).