Dungannon’s Turkington sisters are targeting medals

DUNGANNON’S Turkington sisters, Eve and Hannah, are hoping to help Northern Ireland earn medals success at the European Dodgeball Championships in the Netherlands, which gets underway today.

The pair were part of the Northern Ireland Knights squad that impressed at the most recent Euro’s in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 2019 before Covid put a stop to things for the last couple of years.

In England, Northern Ireland claimed silver in the men’s and mixed events and finished fifth in the women’s competition, much to Eve’s disappointment as that meant she didn’t win a medal, while sister Hannah, who also captain’s soccer team Mid Ulster Ladies in the Danske Bank Women’s Premiership, did as she was part of the mixed team.

In 2022, Eve will again only play in the women’s event, while Hannah will again battle it out on two fronts and confidence his high in the Turkington camp that Northern Ireland can achieve medals success.

“We’re looking forward to it,” Eve beamed. “We played in Newcastle in 2019, which was good fun and we finished fifth overall, so we just missed out on the semi’s.

“It all came down to extra-time, so it was all very tense, but we’re hoping to do better this year.

“We’re coming home with medals this year!”

Prior to the tournament getting underway, Northern Ireland are ranked fourth in Europe in both the women’s and mixed rankings and third in the men’s.

However, that is no guarantee of reaching the latter stages of the competition and Eve knows that with a group containing the host nation, Scotland, Switzerland and Spain that won’t be a given. And while the Swiss and Spanish women, who are both ranked outside the top 15, Scotland, ranked sixth in Europe, should be their biggest test in the group, as will the Netherlands, who, despite being ranked ninth, are much better than that.

“I’d say we’ll be challenged by the Netherlands because they have a background in Handball,” Eve observed.

“The first time they came in was 2019 and we thought ‘brand new team, it’ll be easy’ but my goodness, I’ve never had an experience like it. They beat us, took us completely off guard, so you have to be wary about teams.

“We won’t be taking anyone lightly this time but we are delighted with out group because we have avoided England and Austria, who are probably the two strongest teams.

“But we need to work hard to top our group because we’ll want to avoid the likes of England, Austria or Wales in the knockout stages until at least the semi’s.”

While the women have been given a decent draw for the group stage of the competition, the Northern Ireland mixed team haven’t been so lucky with Austria, Wales, Ireland and Spain standing in their way of progress, while the men face Ireland, France and Spain.

Both Eve and Hannah have enjoyed a successful build-up to the Euro’s by helping Crossfire Cheetahs to the Northern Ireland League title, which they will hope to transfer onto the international stage.