New Delhi: The Netherlands join New Zealand in Saturday’s final of the Hero Hockey World League Final. They won their semi final 4-3 against Australia who will face England in the Bronze medal match now.
Constantijn Jonker (12’) opened the scoring at the beginning of the first half when his reverse stick shot found its way into the net. The Kookaburras struggled to create serious opportunities in the early stages while the Dutch took their chances and doubled their lead. Mink van der Weerden’s (20’) dragflick left the Aussie keeper Tyler Lovell stranded.
Afterwards his counterpart Jaap Stockmann got called into action but he stood strong against the Australian attack. At halftime the Netherlands led 2-0. Coach Paul van Ass said: “We are not planning to change anything in the second half, if anything we are going to make it tougher. We are certainly not going to become complacent.”
The first Kookaburra goal came out of two minutes of intense Aussie pressure on the Dutch goal and Kieran Govers (42’) was able to capitalize on a penalty corner. Five minutes later Russell Ford (47’) levelled the score to 2-2 when deflecting a long pass into Stockmann’s goal.
The world champions fought hard to get another one and it came courtesy of Govers (55’) who fired home a penalty corner. This was his sixth goal in this competition making him the new top scorer of the Hero Hockey World League Final.
Jeroen Hertzberger (62’) brought the Netherlands back into the race by equalising from open play. With four minutes remaining van der Weerden (66’) put the game beyond Australia’s reach when converting his second penalty corner.
Ric Charlesworth, Coach of the Australian team said, “ It was an exciting match but we are very disappointed with the result. We had put up a great fight but failed to make a dent on the outcome. We were not able to convert many opportunities and committed lots of errors. We have a good squad but hockey is unpredictable. Small error can change the shape of the game.”
Speaking after the win, Paul van Ass, Netherlands coach said, “We had a good fight today. We knew this would be an exciting match as Australia is a strong opponent and our team is in good form too. They kept pushing us to defence but we came back pretty well and maintained our lead.”
