Buddah's Blog
What could have been
Hey everyone,
This is the eighth instalment of Buddha’s Blog.
We played Germany the other day in a game that could have had us playing anywhere from the top 4 all the way through to 9th and 10th.
Before the tournament started we had set a main target of playing in the semi-finals and if by some chance we missed out on the top 4 our fallback option was a top 6 finish to improve our ranking, keep a champions trophy spot and hopefully gain 2 spots for Oceania to the 2012 Olympics.
At the bare minimum we had to try and finish in the top 8 to maintain our current ranking and to keep our funding going.
Unfortunately things don’t always work out the way you want it to. We failed in all of our goals with a last up loss to Germany in our pool 5-2.
Germany started the better of the 2 teams scoring from a superb deflection into the top corner of the goal that Kyle our keeper had no chance of saving. Germany again scored from a penalty corner rebound to take a 2-0 lead into the break.
Germany was the better of the 2 teams at the start of the 2nd half scoring after 11 minutes from another deflection. But then the no give up attitude of our team that has always been there came to the fore. I scored off a penalty corner rebound and then Nick Wilson (who had a very good game) scored a wonderful individual goal dribbling past a couple of laboured German defenders and then the goal-keeper before hitting home.
It was now game on 3-2 down with about 15 minutes to go and we were in the match. Its not often will I talk about umpires but on this occasion a couple of times they cost us. We had 2 horrible decisions go against us where Germany earned 2 corners and scored off both of them. This nailed our fates and killed off any chances of gaining at least a point out of the match.
Even if we had only lost 3-2 it would have meant that Argentina would have had to have beaten Canada by 2+ goals in their play-off, instead they only had to win the game.
Germany was the better team on the day and they are the current no. 1 ranked team in the World having been unbeaten for 18 games in a row in World Cup Hockey.
They are also the only unbeaten team of the tournament after pool play.
We play South Africa for 9th and 10th on Friday (11:05pm NZT) after Argentina surpassed us on goal difference by beating Canada 3-2 and will play India for 7th and 8th.
The Koreans upset the Netherlands 2-1 to play-off for 5th and 6th vs. Spain. The Netherlands having now finished 2nd in the pool play the tournament favourites Australia in one of the semi-finals and Germany play England in the other semi-final.
We have one last game to play and it would be great to finish on a high and have a 50% win/loss record in the tournament finishing with 3 wins and 3 losses.
There are always moments or games where you look back and say what could have been. We missed a couple of dream chances against Korea to win emphatically improving our goal difference. But the biggest nail in the heart was the loss to Argentina where we were the better team, more dominate and had better opportunities but couldn’t finish. This game cost us the most in this tournament.
This tournament we have really let ourselves down in front of goal. We have only scored 8 goals from 5 games 4 of which have been from penalty corners or a stroke. To score less than one field goal a game is simply not good enough to match it with the top teams in the world.
At the other end we have been superb being consistently one of the better teams on defence on show at this tournament. The standouts would have to be Kyle Pontifex in goal who has gone from strength to strength and Dean Cousins and Blair Hopping who have an almost supernatural understanding of the game when playing together and to be in the right place at the right time.
It has been a frustrating tournament having done so well in the last couple of tournaments. We have been a bit unlucky through losing instrumental players. Phil Burrows has only played in 2 games after being ruled out of the tournament with a freak accident to the back of his calf that has damaged his nerve in his leg. Simon Child was not here for personal reasons, Brad Shaw has just had a baby boy with wife Melissa and Hayden Shaw’s wife is expecting.
Hopefully with the experienced gained by all players at this tournament added to 3-4 of the players above coming back to play will add to the strength of our team and put us in good stead for the Champions Trophy in August and more importantly to salvage our Hockey year by medalling at the Commonwealth Games.
Hopefully you have all enjoyed my Blogs as this could possibly be the last one from the World Cup.
Kind Regards,
Shea