Player Interviews
Adam Pritchard - Pembroke

For 2010 champions Pembroke, their success was the culmination of five years of building a team, one which swept to a glut of titles in Leinster and the national stage. Building a team of superstars took a while but it dismantling was swift as Conor and David Harte, Craig Fulton, Andy McConnell, Alan Sothern, Justin Sherriff and Ronan Gormley all moved on last summer. It obviously left a major void to fill but, while Brendon Carolan is in the process of reshaping the panel; Irish international Adam Pritchard says that the residual belief of that vintage has been retained even if it is not immediately apparent.

“Last season, I think there was kind of an unspoken expectation that we would win. We were the holders and we’d done quite a good performance in the EHL just a couple of weeks before the IHL finals.

“We felt we were on the up and up and it would take a very good performance from another club to beat us.

“It sounds arrogant but there was a lot of confidence in that side. Now we come into this weekend and it’s much more low-key. I don’t think anyone else expects a lot from us but at the same time there is a lot of belief within the team that if we get things right, we can go a long way.

“In a way, the same belief is there but it isn’t so outwardly visible. There’s a lot of onus on the guys that have been there before to make sure the new guys, especially the likes of Eric Foy and Kirk Shimmins, to make sure they believe we have the ability in the team rather than if we go out with a defeatist attitude, we’re not going to get anywhere.”

His side face Lisnagarvey at 5pm on Saturday just a week after a rough 11-0 defeat to Club de Campo in the EuroHockey League. Drawing solace from that wreckage is tough but the Munster man says there are a few things which can be learned from.

“That’s the key word, challenge. Friday was a bit of a depressing one. No one likes to lose that heavily but it’s up to us to bounce back.

“If we can take any positives from that defeat and use them as building block. As a learning experience, how Campo played and how we approached the game was a contrast. Everything they did was one-twos, slick, guys moving off the ball.

“Anyone who was watching the game will have seen we were much more, maybe naive; thinking we could beat two or three players and that kind of stuff. Hopefully, we can learn the lessons from that.”

Pritchard does believe, though, that one of the central facets of this incarnation of this team is their ability to bounce back and learn from their mistakes.

“We’ve gone through peaks and troughs this season. We lost to Monkstown twice and then beat them in the deciding IHL game. We had a couple of poor results early on but then beat YM in the league and while it didn’t turn out how we wanted, that was a very positive performance.

“We have tended to bounce back from difficult situations. This is a fantastic opportunity to come back from that failure on Friday.
“We also have to keep in mind Campo are a good side, they are in the semi-final of the EHL, they beat Terrassa. We constantly have to measure ourselves against those top teams.

“Ok, this time we came up short. Coming back to Ireland, it’s a different kettle of fish completely. It’s a great opportunity to put things right and it is important that we don’t get downhearted and accept it for what it was, a defeat.”

And for all the changes in the side, there could be a hidden bonus as Lisnagarvey may not know quite what to expect with last year’s IHL final serving scant information for the newly crowned Ulster champions.

“As far as they’re concerned, we’ll be a bit of an unknown quantity. They haven’t played this side before. “From our point of view, we have some knowledge. Dave Williamson has some insider knowledge and has been a great help to us since he’s come down. I’ve played Garvey on numerous occasions with C of I as have the guys who played last season.

“Their squad is quite similar; a lot of the young players have matured and Jason Lynch has grown into the role that he has taken on, more of the instrumental playmaker that he would have been when he started.

“But I don’t think any club side in Ireland – everyone knows everyone – can pull any big surprises or shock tactics. The winner is always going to be the one who wants it more and the one who gets things right on the day. Teams can choke or have injuries; those kinds of things decide games. It’s not going to be some unknown factor which coaches didn’t allow for or expect.”

Interview conducted by Stephen Findlater, Freelance Journalist on behalf of the IHA