Junior Black Sticks crush their Malaysian counterpart by 8-0 on the first day: Hockey News
In the first Test between the junior men sides of New Zealand and Malaysia, the Black Sticks pounded their opponents by 8-0. These matches are being held from June 3-7 at the Alexander McMillan Hockey Centre at Logan Park, in Dunedin, New Zealand.
These matches have been hosted by the Otago Hockey Association (OHA) at the same venue that played in the last international Test, back in 2007, when The Black Stick women contested the Hockeyroos.
In today’s match, June 3, the host team gave a thrilling performance against the Malaysian junior men. They dominated the field throughout the seventy minutes of the game, with a solitary win at 8-0.
In the first half, the team managed to open scores in the first couple of minutes, as a result of an excellent pair of forwards, James Coughlan and Callum Bailey. Coughlan made it into the defensive circle, where he threw a pass at Bailey, who executed a
perfect deflection right into the goal. Malaysia attempted a counter-attack, but Mohammad Fitri’s attempt went wide of the goal, keeping Black Sticks in lead at 1-0. In the 25th minute, Bailey showed up again and sealed his second goal of the game,
with scores at 2-0.
The first half ended with two more additions from the host side that were made by Isaac Staples and Amir Mukherjee in the 32nd and 33rd minute, respectively.
During the second half, Malaysians were more composed, trying to take advantage over their opponents, but were getting pounded by New Zealand’s defensive wing. As a result, Coughlan sealed his first score for the team in the 53rd minute, advancing
their lead to 5-0.
Each time when Malaysia was close to scoring, either they missed a pass or the ball went wide of the goal-post that kept building pressure over them, as time passed. Resultantly, the team was found exhausted and slowly that raised the host team’s chances
to attempt more goals and Black Sticks sealed two more goals that were delivered by Jacob Smith and Staples. The final goal was shot in the closing minute by Smith, when the Malaysian goal-keeper dived to deny, but failed to do so, ending the match with a
lead by 8-0 over Malaysia.
The next three matches will be played on June 4, 6 and 7 at the same venue.
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