Ireland put in a battling performance against the world number three side Australia, losing 2-1.
Australia took control from the first quarter, and opened the scoring through Corey Weyer after Ireland failed to clear their lines from a penalty corner.
Ireland had a far more attacking philosophy than in their opening game against Belgium and levelled the game through Lee Cole in the second quarter.
Mark Tumilty’s side were less than a minute away from taking that score line into half-time when from another corner, the shot hit Cole on the shin pad and from the resulting penalty stroke, Blake Govers made no mistake.
Ireland stuck to their task in the second half and created a number of half chances but just couldn’t find the equaliser as they fell to their second defeat in Paris.
“I thought we left a few chances out there but Australia had plenty of chances as well so I think we can be very proud of that performance today,” explained Tumilty after the match.
”We asked a lot of the players to be braver with the ball and I definitely think we were and we created a lot more, so I think we’ve played ourselves into the tournament now.
“I think people need to recognise the challenge we have at the level of teams we’re playing against and we’re the second lowest ranked team in the tournament, but I think we’ve proven out there today that we can definitely compete.
“I think the next three games are the three games we would always have targeted, so I look forward to tomorrow and later in the week.”
India are the next opponents for Ireland on Tuesday (12:15 BST).