Defending champions Australia thrashed South Africa 8-3 on Wednesday to boost their chances of reaching the final of the 14th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup. It was the Kookaburras best performance of the tournament, having struggled to live up to their tag as favourites in their previous four matches, including Tuesdays 2-2 draw with their main rivals Pakistan.
It was the Kookaburras best performance of the tournament, having struggled to live up to their tag as favourites in their previous four matches, including Tuesdays 2-2 draw with their main rivals Pakistan.
But the Olympic champions finally came good on Wednesday, strolling to a 5-1 half-time lead and then controlling the pace of the game in the second half.
Australia play India in their final group game on Friday and victory would ensure a place in Sundays final.
"We scored early and the good thing was that we scored a lot of goals from the chances we created, which is what we havent been doing before," said Australias assistant coach Peter Batch.
"We are getting there. We have a tough match against India coming up and we know we have to win if we are to reach the final," he said.
Jamie Dwyer scored twice for the Aussies, once in each half, while Eli Matheson, Robert Hammond, Travis Brooks, Michael McCann, Brent Livermore (penalty stroke) and Grant Schubert also got their names on the scoresheet.
South Africa scored more goals in Wednesday's match than they had done in their previous four matches but it was not enough against the powerful Aussies.
Emile Smith, John McInroy and Ricky Gay scored the goals for South Africa, who remain bottom of the seven-team standings with just one point from their 1-1 draw with hosts Malaysia last Friday.
The top two teams after a round-robin contest Sunday's final.
Pakistan 3 (Adnan Zakir 8, Rehan Butt 11, Akhtar Ali 28) India 2 (Deepak Thakur 50, Sandeep Michael 52).
HALF-TIME SCORE: 3-0.
New Zealand 3 (Philip Burrows 2, Blair Hopping 50, Bryce Collin 55) Malaysia 1 (S. Kuhan 43).
HALF-TIME SCORE: 0-1.
Australia 8 (Eli Matheson 2, Robert Hammond 20, Travis Brooks 25, Jamie Dwyer 26, 70, Michael McCann 28, Brent Livermore 56, Grant Schubert 57) South Africa 3 (Emile Smith 9, John McInroy 20, Ricky Gay 58).
HALF-TIME SCORE: 5-1.
Standings after Wednesdays play. (played, won, draw, lost, for, against, points)
========================================================
Pakistan 5 4 1 0 12 7 13
Australia 5 3 2 0 18 10 11
SKorea 4 2 1 1 13 7 7
New Zealand 5 2 1 2 9 7 7
Malaysia 5 1 1 3 7 12 4
India 5 1 1 3 8 14 4
South Africa 5 0 1 4 5 15 1
========================================================
Comments
Comments are closed.