Scotland finishes at fourth place in the FIH Champions Challenge II after a defeat against Russia by 1-3
The Scottish men’s national hockey team could only manage to secure the fourth place in the FIH Men’s Champions Challenge II event which was played in Lille, France and concluded on Sunday, July 10.
The Scottish men’s national hockey side had to suffer from a defeat against their Russian counter-parts by 3-1 for the third position play-off game.
Despite the fact of leading the first half by one goal to nil, the Scottish side could not continue the similar goal-scoring attitude in the second half in which the Russians played sensational hockey, especially in the last ten minutes in which they scored
three goals. Although, the Scottish men played beautifully throughout the match, but they remained unlucky as the Russians stole the victory in the last eight minutes of the match.
"We ran out of legs and substitutes and paid the price in the final seven minutes. We played well against the Russians, but once again we surrendered a winning position and let the other side back into the game," Eugene Connolly, the manger of the Scottish
men’s national hockey side, stated after the match.
The match was played in a hard-fighting environment as both the teams made some daring efforts in the first half, but it was Scotland that first opened its account in the 19th minute, when Gavin Byers scored a wonderful field goal and put his
team ahead of the rivals by a solitary point. The score lasted until the interval.
The second half also depicted the same story as the first half because the match remained goal-less in the initial 25 minutes of the second half, but in the last eight minutes there was an amazing drama, as the Russians made three strikes in a short-span
of time of just eight minutes and marched towards the victory stand with a bronze medal.
Russia scored their first goal in the 62nd minute, when Alexey Mamoshkin levelled the score with a wonderful field goal. The Scottish men were stunned and just six minutes after the equaliser, when the Russians took the lead
two minutes before the end of the match. Pavel Golubev scored the second goal in the 68th minute, but the Russians did not stop at that time as they did the final damage in the dying moments of the match, when Anton Kornilov made the winning-strike
in the 70th minute. The match concluded at 3-1 to Russia.
Tags: