The Black Sticks Men hold Australian Kookaburras at 3-3 level in their second match of the Oceania Cup in Hobart
New Zealand’s Black Sticks Men held the reigning world champions, Australian Kookaburras, at 3-3 level in their second match of the Oceania Cup – Olympic Qualifier – played at the Tasmanian Hockey Centre in Hobart, Tasmania, on Saturday, October 8.
In their previous match of the tournament, the Black Sticks Men totally outclassed the Australians by recording an impressive 3-0 victory.
Kookaburras’ coach, Ric Charlesworth, did not look pleased with his team’s performance in the match as they had missed a number of goal scoring opportunities after achieving the required lead.
“We were in a position to win the match but simply were not good enough to do so. We gave away a couple of soft goals and we need to finish better. We are playing against a quality opposition and we are below par at the moment,” Ric Charlesworth, stated
disappointedly after the match.
The match was extremely thrilling as the Black Sticks Men equalised the Kookaburras at every occasion throughout the match.
The match started with an early strike by the Kookaburras when Mark Knowles converted a penalty corner into a goal in the 7th minute of the play.
However, the remaining part of the first half went scoreless as both the teams could not tick the score board in spite of some wonderful efforts.
The second half started on a perfect note for the Kiwis as they equalised the score right at the beginning.
In just the initial seconds of the 36th minute, Simon Child scored a wonderful field goal to pull off the lead for the Black Sticks Men.
However, four time world player of the year, Jamie Dwyer, did it again for the Kookaburras with a brilliant field goal in the 38th minute.
New Zealand once again, leveled the score when Blair Hilton found the net in the 44th minute of the mark.
In counter defense, Russell Ford put Australia back into the lead in the 48th minute.
Nonetheless, Nick Wilson made the score even during the 50th minute with a field beauty that kept the score unaffected until the end, resulting in a draw in an intense match between the Black Sticks and Kuckaburras
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