World Championships - England defeat Australia again
In the World Championships play-off for seventh place, England
and Australia met for the second time, England having won
the previous game, four days ago, with a golden goal.
England started with a sustained attack, lasting more than
three minutes, including a penalty miss. Eventually Ross Bower
made up for that, scoring from mid range, then adding a second
after six minutes. Australia had only had the ball in attack
for around 30 seconds of that time, but Megan O’Keefe
put their next turn with the ball to good use, scoring from
a free pass to make it 2-1, and with James Tye taking Dave
Synott away from the post, the way was clear for Brad Marks
to bring the score even with a well taken distance shot. As
in the previous game between them, it was clear that Australia
would need to make the best of what possession it could hang
on to. Jocelyn Hoffman scored from under the post to give
the lead back to England, then after 15 minutes, Bower scored
his third and England’s fourth from mid range, with
Synott secure in the rebound. At the other end, Tye then turned
Synott to open up an opportunity that he smartly sunk. Rob
Williams then struck the first goal for his section, finishing
a free pass, before Jeremy Harris returned the compliment
from a penalty for 5-4 to England. Free from loose play behind
the korf Kelly Harrison made no mistake to level the score.
On 26 minutes, Otto Fabius scored from nine metres to give
England back the lead, and at half time it remained 6-5.
O’Keefe opened the second half with an unerring free
pass conversion, but Bower was having none of it and struck
back to restore England’s lead from six metres. After
40 minutes Harris worked hard to make enough space to score
from seven metres, but Williams hit right back in England’s
next attack. Capitalising on lack of defensive concentration,
right under the korf, Wendy Kenbeek then put the Australian
team back on level terms at 8-8, but Bower again responded,
this time from the penalty spot after a foul by Kenbeek herself.
At this point, with around 15 minutes to go, it was clear
that whichever team held their nerve better was going to prevail.
On balance that was most likely to be England, but as South
Africa had found to their cost, Australia is capable of a
late run, With nine minutes to run, Bower scored again from
a free pass to give England a two goal cushion for the first
time in 32 minutes. Williams scored another free pass to extend
the English lead, but an O’Keefe run in brought the
margin back to two. One of three female players off the bench
for England, Carla Bennett scored well from distance shortly
after joining the game, but Harrison replied in almost identical
fashion seconds later. O’Keefe, with 45 seconds left,
dragged Australia back to within one from a long shot. England
then did almost enough in their next attack to run down the
clock without raising doubt in referee Geoffrey Picquer’s
mind about time wasting, and by the time Australia had the
ball again there was only eight seconds left. Australia’s
last throw of the dice was an ambitious long shot from O’Keefe,
which narrowly missed, so the final score was 12-11, giving
England seventh place.
Later in the day, the Netherlands retained their title, defeating
Belguim 23-10.
Congratulations to the England squad for all their hard work
before and during this tournament.
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