The Ireland women's’ hockey squad will shortly be heading to sunny Spain for a training camp ahead of this year’s European Nations Cup trip to Amsterdam.

The visit to Valencia on the northern edge of the Costa Blanca will take place at the start of next month. Today, Ireland’s ‘A’ team were due to play the North Americans in the first of the five match series in Dublin which will include three at senior level.

Meanwhile a fixture backlog looms large after the postponement of their scheduled weekend game between Pegasus and Ballymoney. As fate would have it, the milder weather conditions allowed a full programme of matches to be played on Saturday while Pegasus and Ballymoney were idle.

Proving the massive gulf between the champions and the rest second placed Ards, who shipped five goals against Pegasus, slipped further behind in the title ‘race’ when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Lisnagarvey.

Third placed Randalstown were also held to a 1-1 stalemate by Armagh who have moved three places off the bottom of the table.

Belfast Harlequins have moved up to fourth place in the rankings after their 3-0 win over Lurgan.

Elsewhere, Victorians earned a 2-0 success over Knock.

In the Irish Hockey Trophy Cookstown and Priorians won against Wexford (3-1) and Newbridge (6-1) respectively but Dromore went down 2-1 to Genesis.