THE Wales women’s hockey team are targeting fifth place at the EuroHockey Division II Championships after just missing out on a semi-final spot in Prague.

The side, captained by Usk’s Abi Welsford and also featuring Newport duo Sophie Clayton and 16-year-old Izzy Webb, recorded a draw, a win and a loss in their pool matches.

The team now need to refocus for their next scheduled matches against the Ukraine at 12.15pm today and France on Saturday.

Reflecting on the team’s performance so far, team manager Ben Eaton said: “The chance to reach the semi-finals came down to the match against Azerbaijan.

“The girls had a lot of possession during the match, but we weren’t able to convert those chances.

“We knew the match against Azerbaijan would be a challenge, because they are a good team and they play a unique style of hockey.

“Unfortunately on the day they were more clinical in their execution.”

Wales conceded two goals to Azerbaijan, one coming just moments after an equalizer from Leah Wilkinson. It was Wilkinson who also scored a winning goal in the closing seconds of the team’s second match against Austria on Sunday, which ended 2-1.

She said: “It's always disappointing to get so close to the top of the group and just lose out.

“We entered this tournament as the lowest ranked team and we made life hard for Azerbaijan, so we have to take confidence from our performance.

“The game against Austria was really tight and this was an important match for us because we needed the win.

“With 40 seconds to go it never felt like we were going to score, but luckily we came through and scored with 25 seconds to go. That was a really great feeling.”

Wales opened their European campaign with a draw against the number two ranked team, Belarus, with goals again from Wilkinson and Lisa Daley, while Clayton scored Wales’ first goal against Austria.

Eaton concluded: “We now need to focus on the task at hand, which is winning the next two matches.

“The team are capable of finishing fifth, we just need to be more confident in our game plan in order to convert the opportunities.”