Final group matches crucial for Scottish athletes in EuroHockey Nations Championship
The Scottish Men’s and Women’s hockey teams lost their way to victory in their second group matches in the EuroHockey Nations Championship as the men hardly managed to level at 2-2 against their Austrian counterparts in Vinnitsa, Ukraine while the women
athletes lost to Belarus 2-1 in Poznan, Poland.
Now both the teams will have to wait for the winning result in their third and the final group fixtures to advance into the semi-finals of the tournament. The Scottish Men will be up against Belarus while the Scottish ladies will face the challenge of the
local ladies, the Polish athletes.
The Scottish Men played really well throughout the match as they created not only a number of chances but also won a lot of penalty corners. However, they remained unlucky as they could convert only two chances into goals, a single strike in each half of
the game whereas their opponents also scored two goals to level the match.
The Scottish team opened their account halfway in the first half when Kenny Bain scored the opening goal for Scotland on his second attempt as the initial one was saved by the Austrian goal-keeper. However, the Austrians equalised just before the interval
when Jamie Cachia scored first goal.
Scottish Men also missed a couple of good chances in the opening minutes of the second half when Bain’s shot went over the goalpost while Alan Forsyth narrowly missed the target. However, Scotland took the advantage once again when Gordon McIntyre scored
the second for Scotland but just before the finish Cachia once again made the surviving effort for Austria and levelled the score just before the final whistle.
Meanwhile the Scottish Women had to face a narrow defeat against the Belarusian outfit by 2-1 in their second match of the tournament. The Scottish ladies did not perform very well in the match although they scored the opening goal just before the interval.
The first half of the game was evenly balanced between the sides while the second half mostly belonged to Belarusians in which they made a double strike.
The Scottish ladies hardly found the lead in the dying moments of the first half when Nikki Kidd scored the opener on a penalty corner to put Scotland ahead by a solitary strike at the interval. However, in the second half Belarus equalised in the 54th
minute while just three minutes before the finish Iryna Kazachok scored the winning goal for Belarus.
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