Talk:Ireland men's national field hockey team

Flag
The lead on the article is clear that, aside from the Olympics, the Ireland hockey team represents all of Ireland. Yet the page displays a Southern Tricolour. This is misleading. I tried to see how I could change this, but it appears to be linked into the infobox somehow. Can anyone help? Mooretwin (talk) 09:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The Irish hockey teams do not normally play under the tricolour. Normally the flag flown at tournaments is the the IHA flag. For example, look in the background at this link Weejack48 (talk) 00:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed: so how do we replace the Southern Tricolour with the IHA flag? Mooretwin (talk) 14:11, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. I hope its more politically correct for you now!MusicInTheHouse (talk) 00:55, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. How did you do it? Mooretwin (talk) 00:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hopefully this diff explains all!MusicInTheHouse (talk) 01:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Olympics
The team always represents the entire island, even in the Olympics. This followed the controversial ruling made by the FIH and the then Irish Hockey Union after the 1992 Games. Olympic participation by Northern players had always been a running battle. Whilst the player can still elect to play for Team GB, because of the amended ruling by the two bodies, they are effectively banned from playing International hockey in the Ireland team for a qualifying period of four or five years (I can't remember the exact period). As Team GB only compete in Olympic tournaments, this now effectively disbars all but the most determined and gifted of players. I am saying that it is controversial since the ruling does not aplly in the same way to players from Scotland and Wales.

I believe a couple of Northern players may have recently elected to remove themselves from Irish selection to attempt to get into the Team GB set up. It is a risky option as they do not get any international experience. Prior to the ruling, Northern Ireland players could play for Team GB (eg Jimmy Kirkwwod and Stephen Martin) and return immediately to the Irish team. In the ladies' game, at one stage they took a much more hard line approach even before the FIH ruling. For instance, when Jenny Redpath (nee Given), a prolific goalscorer, chose to play for Team GB she was banned from the Irish team. This was highly controversial at the time and if you look at the newspaper archives from the early 80s, particularly the Northern papers, many column inches were taken up over this issue.Weejack48 (talk) 23:18, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not true to say that the team represents the entire island in the Olympics. In the Olympics the team is drawn from the entire island, but it only represents the Republic. (Under Olympic rules, teams represent sovereign states.)
 * It would be good if you could add some of your material above to the article - with references, of course! Mooretwin (talk) 14:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

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