Zara selected for Ireland World Cup Hockey Squad

Zara plays her club hockey for Ards and is studying medicine at QUB.

We spoke to her last year (Feb 2021) when her sights were set on making the squad for the Tokyo Olympics but her path hasn't been an entirely smooth one.

On leaving school in 2015 Zara went to Edinburgh to study Chemical Engineering, despite having played for Ireland U18s she slipped off the selectors radar when she couldn't commit to flying backwards and forwards to Belfast every weekend for training.

When Zara graduated and returned to Holywood in 2019 she had already applied for and had gained a place to study Medicine at Queen’s beginning in September. After some stand-out club performances for Ards, she was back on the Ireland radar, helped in part by a good word from another former Sullivan pupil - Gareth Grundie (class of 1997) who is part of the Ards coaching setup and also an Assistant Coach with Ireland.

“Gareth definitely put in a good word for me which helped with getting me brought into the Ireland U21 programme. I did one training camp with them in January 2020 and the following week was moved up to the Seniors. My first Irish National Camp was in February 2020."  

Zara won her first senior Ireland cap in June 2021 against England and travelled as part of the squad for the Tokyo Olympics as a reserve.

A huge congratulations to the 6 Ulster athletes selected for the World Cup…

Charlotte Beggs
Erin Getty
Zara Malseed
Ayeisha McFerran
Katie McKee
Katie Mullan

An amazing achievement ??

Good luck to all ? https://t.co/GynNZ3WZcC

— Ulster Hockey (@UlsterHockey) June 18, 2022

Ireland are making final preparations for the tournament this week with a series of games against Japan in Dublin and then get their World Cup campaign underway on July 2nd against the hosts and current world number one side, the Netherlands.

A July 5th date against tournament debutantes Chile (world rank: 17) follows, before concluding the group stage on July 6th against Germany (world rank: 5).

The group toppers advance directly to the quarter-final stage with the second and third place nations facing an extra game to reach that stage in the crossover playoffs.

Ireland’s initial run of fixtures take place in Amsterdam, however the tournament semi-final and final will be played in Terrassa, Spain.

Good luck Zara!