Bhubaneswar: Defending champions Australia made a mockery of China’s reputation by beating them 11-0 in their final Pool B match of the Men’s Hockey World Cup at the Kalinga Stadium here, Friday.
World Cup debutant China earned respects from all quarters after their performance in the last two matches. But ruthless Australians annihilated their opponents with ease. However, Ireland’s 2-4 loss to England ensured the debutants that their journey at the 2018 HWC will continue.
Australia dominated their opponents right from the start and scored goals on every quarter of the match. Blake Govers (10th, 19th and 34th minutes) scored a hat-trick and became the top scorer of the World Cup. Tim Brand (33rd and 55th) scored a brace along with six other players who registered their name on the score sheet.
It was Govers who opened the scoring from a penalty corner at the 10th minute. After that, it was raining goals with the crowd enjoying every one of it. Apart from Govers and Brand, Aran Zalewski (15th), Tom Craig (16th), Jeremy Hayward (22nd), Jake Whetton (29th), Dylan Wotherspoon (38th) and Flynn Ogilvie (49th) scored for Australia.
The Kookaburras dominated their opponent’s right from the start. From the first second, they’ve made an indication of picking up an early goal. And they got it through Govers. But the match went on to become bad to worse for China as the defending champions kept on scoring goals at regular intervals.
The early domination put more pressure on China and at one point of time they were looking clueless and lacking confidence. Australia dominated from every angle, not just one side or the other. They stretched Chinese defence wide and the likes of Govers, Zalewski and Brand had a free run.
The Kookaburras showed their character as they triumphed their way into quarterfinals. Throughout the game, they have not committed a single mistake which could allow the opposition to stage a comeback.
Teams often get complacent towards the end of the match after scoring so many goals. But Australia wanted to keep a clean sheet till the final hooter and they did exactly what they intended.
Australia presented a different test for them and the inexperienced bunch failed miserably. Chinese players couldn’t keep their emotions under control and as time went on, they lost their grip from the match.
The debutants committed too many errors inside the circle to allow Australia more penetrations. They opened up spaces for the Aussies unknowingly and the World No.1 team took full advantage of those errors.
Their tackles were not effective at all and lost ball possession too many times. Their defence against penalty corners too was woeful. Govers faced hardly faced any problem while converting the two PCs.
During the fourth quarter, Matt Dawson dived inside the circle to keep away a brilliant pass from one of the Chinese players, which was dangerous and could’ve ended up being a goal.
For the first time in the match, China were dominating possession midway in the fourth quarter but rock-solid defence from Australia players averted any kind of danger.