Australia-A trounce Indian Men 4-1 in friendly match: Hockey Update
The Indian men’s hockey team doled out a spiritless show and unfolded their tour on a bad note, losing to Australia-A by 4-1 in the first international friendly match played on Monday, October 17, at the Rockingham Club Ground in Perth, Australia.
The Indian team is currently on the Australian tour to play a nine-a-side series besides contesting a four-nation tournament featured with Pakistan, New Zealand and the host, Australia.
Conversely, the Indians, failed to show their real potential against Australia A in the friendly match, which will leave negative impacts on the coming fixtures.
The youngsters from Australia opened the game aggressively, accomplishing back to back attacks from the very early minutes.
Don Hotchkis drew the first blood in the very 7th minute of the play to put the host side ahead of India at 1-0.
However, the Australian team took 14 minutes more to double the tally. Jacob Whetton marked the second goal in the 21st minute of the match to expand the lead.
With only five minutes left on the clock, Rupinder Singh whacked a short corner for India to conclude the first half at 2-1.
Following 20-minutes of blank play, the home side sped up their efforts and acquired a couple of goals within four minutes.
Matt Ghodes and Tom Wickham accounted for one goal apiece respectively in the 57th and 61st minutes and extended the lead by three to win the game at 4-1.
Michael Nobbs, Indian men’s coach, termed the defeat a good lesson for the team. However, he did not pay much importance to the outcome.
He observed, “We played against the best team. When you do so, you are not supposed to commit mistakes. We did commit a lot of them, and got punished. This is a good lesson for team”.
To ease the pain of Indian men’s team, the women came forward and managed a draw in the third test against Australia at one-all.
With the draw, the two teams have locked horns at 1-1 in the four-match series, with one game left to play.
The Indian women lost to Hockeyroos by 3-2 in the first game but managed to bounce back to win the second test by 2-1.
In a delighted mood, Women’s team Manager, AB Subbaiah, said that the team displayed a well-organised game to make a draw.
He added, “We are improving match by match. Today, Australia put up a good fight to snatch the series, but we could manage to draw”.
Indian men will have to show their real potential against the youngsters, as the defeat in the second friendly can further demoralise the players ahead of real action.
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