Hockey: England beat Germany, Argentina and Netherlands win in Women’s Champions Trophy
England’s women got their Champions Trophy campaign back on track after a thrilling encounter against Germany in their third game of the tournament. This was England’s second victory and helped them occupy the second position on the table. Earlier the hosts won against Argentina and lost to Netherlands.
Germany won an early penalty corner which saw Tina Bachmann rounding Crista Cullen to put the ball beyond goalkeeper Beth Storry, apparently scoring the opening goal of the game. But the video umpire ruled the effort illegal because Germany’s Nina Hasselmann had both feet on the pitch while firing in the penalty corner.
In the 24th minute it was England’s time to respond from the penalty corner. Helen Richardson dived and deflected the ball towards the goal to register their first goal and go into the lead.
The intense encounter saw Germany and England both coming up with back to back attacks none of which proved fruitful and the half ended with England leading 1-0.
The story of the second half was no different and the Germans kept pressing hard. Their efforts were eventually rewarded with 10 minutes to go when Natascha Keller put Germany level at 1-1 through a masterful penalty corner. England mounted an immediate response when they won a penalty corner three minutes later and once again it was Helen Richardson who put England into the lead.
England defended their lead for the remaining 7 minutes and secured victory. All the goals in the game came off penalty corners and the one that was disallowed was an effort from a corner as well. Germans were disappointed after a disallowed goal and England coach Danny Kerry said that they had already discussed the possibility of corner takers coming on to the field of play and referring to the video umpire turned out to be a good decision.
English Captain Kate Walsh said that they knew this sort of infringement happens a lot and they saw that in the game while lining up to defend the corner and immediately made a referral.
England will play their next game against China on Thursday while the Germans will take on New Zealand. Germany has so far managed one win and a draw from three games they played so far and dropped to 4th place after their defeat.
In the other two games of the tournament Argentina played New Zealand and China played the Netherlands. The defending champions Argentina had a horrible start to the tournament with a defeat to England and a draw against Germany. However, the Argentine women made no mistake against Black Sticks and won the game 4-0.
Merino opened the scoring through a field goal in the 12th minute and Barrionuevo added another to go into halftime with a 2-0 lead. Matters became worse for New Zealand after half time when Argentina added two more goals through Aymar in the 65th minute and Sruoga in the 68th minute. New Zealand has now lost 7 consecutive games which is their longest losing streak.
New Zealand have already given up their hopes of performing well in the tournament as their Captain Emily Naylor said that the team is now likely to fight for 5th position and they would try to win the game and finish on a positive.
Argentine Captain Noel Barrionuevo said that the team performed much better than the previous games and their passing and defence have considerably improved. She said that the team will fight extremely hard to make it to the final.
In the last game of the day the Netherlands won their 3rd game of the tournament against China to retain the lead. In a game that was a tale of two halves for China, they took an early lead through Fu Boarong in the 5th minute and did well to defend it until the 43rd minute. From then on things went against China, as Paumen converted two corners to take the lead and eventually the victory for the Dutch.
China has won their only game against New Zealand and will play the hosts England in the next game.
Tags: