Ireland captain Sarah Hawkshaw expressed pride in her team-mates despite their Women's Hockey World Cup dream being dashed by hosts Belgium on Thursday.
Gareth Grundie's side put in a gutsy display in the Belfius Hockey Arena but fell to a 2-1 defeat.
The result means Ireland will not advance further in the competition but will go through the consolation of the classification rounds.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport's Siobhan Madigan, Hawkshaw praised her team-mates for almost belying their underdog status against the Belgians.
"You get sick of saying we're that close when we're (getting) 2-1 scorelines against top three teams in the world," she said.
"Incredibly, incredibly proud for the fight that we showed"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 20, 2026
Ireland captain Sarah Hawkshaw reacts after their defeat to Belgium at the Women's Hockey World Cup pic.twitter.com/KEgRhPVNS6
"Incredibly, incredibly proud for the fight that we showed. I think there weren't many people here in the stadium who thought that we could have a chance against this team and we showed how relentless we are.
"Our defending was phenomenal. It took one moment or two moments to change the game and Belgium are a class side, we put it up to them and really disappointed but incredibly, incredibly proud."
Hawkshaw added that Ireland could take positives from their exploits in Belgium overall which included a 3-2 win over New Zealand on Tuesday.
"I think very positively," she said.
"I think we built really nicely. Spain, there was probably not a lot of control. We wanted more control in that game. If anything, that's a game that we wanted to improve on.
"New Zealand was a build again and we found a way against New Zealand, which was really important for us.
"And then I think today we showed an incredible amount of fight. Now we can't stop here. There is an important finish to this tournament.
"We'll obviously be disappointed and I think the conversation there was to carry what we have here and build through these three games, into the next group that we're in now for the rest of the tournament. It's not over."
"Still really positive but a few learnings and we need to take that performance into Saturday now"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 20, 2026
Ireland head coach Gareth Grundie after his side's defeat to Belgium at the Women's Hockey World Cup pic.twitter.com/OMYq2BELyh
Ireland head coach Grundie echoed his captain's view about the performance levels of the team against Belgium.
"I can't fault the effort tonight. I thought we were superb," he said.
"They did really well. I think we deserved to be ahead at half-time but probably soaked up a little bit too much pressure in the third quarter, and then we really started to play again once it went back to one (goal) each.
"So still really positive but a few learnings and we need to take that performance into Saturday now."
Ireland will face Scotland on Saturday in the first of three classification group matches in Pool H with fixtures versus New Zealand and the USA to follow.
