Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup : Hat trick of penalty corner goals puts Australia in semis
Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup : Hat trick of penalty corner goals puts Australia in semis Defending champions Australia beat Fra18nce 3-0 to secure a berth in semi finals of the Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday. All the goals for Australia came through penalty corner conversions. Australia is not known to win matches by penalty corner goals alone. Perhaps today was an exception. Though France lost by a clear margin, it had its chances, including a near sitter in the 23rd minute when Aristide Coisne broke through and had the Australian goalkeeper tripped. His goalbound shot was, however, cleared by Jeremy Hayward. A good scoring chance was lost for France. At that stage Australia was leading 2-0. A hat trick of penalty corner goals had given the defending champions 3-0 lead by the end of the third quarter. Playing against a team ranked 20 dots below the Kangaroos were in full command against young France team playing in World Cup after a gap of 28 years. How determined were French can be judged from the run of play in which both teams shared honours. One department in which France failed to match their more fancied and experienced opponents was penalty corners, both in conceding and defending. Jeremy Hayward had given the World number one team lead in the fourth minute from the first penalty corner of the game. Fifteen minutes later when the second such award came Australia’s way, it was the turn of Blake Gowers to score for Australia to make the score 2-0. Intriguingly, the scorer from the third penalty corner was Aran Zalewski, who after taking the push had positioned himself close to the goasl. When the ball was passed on to him, he had little difficulty in pushing it across to complete a hat trick of penalty corner goals for Australia. From three penalty corners Australia had three different scorers. Normally Australians excel in field goals, interceptions, deflections and placements. But today, French had a control on the field scoring abilities of the Kangaroos. Man of the match: Aran Zalewski (Australia)
