Kookaburras Advance to Quarter Final Clash with the Netherlands
Hockey: Australia v Brazil
Athlete: Fergus Kavanagh, Aran Zalewski
Venue: Olympic Hockey Centre
The medal matches of the men’s Olympic hockey tournament will be missing one of the world’s top two sides after Australia’s men’s hockey team, ranked number one, were matched with world number two, the Netherlands, for Sunday’s knock-out last eight following their 9-0 win over Brazil.
Only a shock defeat to the hosts, ranked 29 places below Australia, would have seen the Aussies finish lower than third place and they duly delivered the anticipated victory to set up the mouth-watering clash with the London 2012 silver medallists (7:00am AEST, Monday).
Having lost 2-1 to reigning champions Germany earlier in the day, the Netherlands rounded off Pool B in second place.
The match began amid a samba-style party atmosphere, which continued throughout the contest, despite Australia notching up the goals. And it got even more excitable after the final whistle when Brazilian goalkeeper, Rodrigo Faustino, proposed to his girlfriend in the stand.
And that wasn’t the only milestone moment of the night. Jamie Dwyer’s first goal of the tournament, from close range in the seventh minute, assured he will finish his career after the Games having scored in four Olympic tournaments, adding Rio to London, Beijing and Athens. His second goal came just 73 seconds later after Brazil failed to clear their lines.
Dwyer’s cousin, Matt Gohdes, made it Rockhampton three, Brazil nil as he fired a tomahawk strike into the net from the edge of the circle soon after.
Glenn Turner bagged a second quarter hat-trick in just six minutes and 53 seconds as he tucked home a penalty corner rebound, deflected Gohdes’ slapped pass corner, and knocked over the line following good work by Govers.
Australia’s youngsters got in on the act in the third period with a brace of penalty corner goals. First, 22 year-old Matthew Dawson found the net for his first Olympic goal before his New South Wales teammate Govers, 20, matched him for 8-0. Govers doubled his tally late on, converting a penalty corner rebound after the goalkeeper thwarted Chris Ciriello’s effort.
After the match, forward Glenn Turner said he was pleased with his first Olympic hat-trick and with the improvements made as Australia seek their best form.
“It’s a special moment,” said Turner. “I’ve missed a couple of tap-ins in another couple of games and some good saves by the goalkeepers but good to get a couple today. Mine were the scrappy ones that I need to score and that’s what I do for the team.
Such is their determination to find form, Australia took part in a penalty corner training session immediately after the match.
“We worked on a few things tonight,” added Turner. “Our corners got a bit better. If we can tidy that up and tidy a few things around the circle, our defence is really good so hopefully it puts us in good stead.”
Looking ahead to the quarter final, Australian captain Mark Knowles said his side is relishing the prospect.
It’s going to be a brilliant hockey clash,” said Knowles. “This is the best two teams in the world for the last four years. We played in the World Cup final. We’ve played in numerous big tournaments. [It’s European champions versus Oceania champions.
“We expect a real grind. Their quality is in their individual skills. They’re very thorough on their execution of their penalty corners so we need to be really sharp in our defensive circle.
“But we also know that we play at a very high tempo and we can hurt teams with that. The Dutch will be ready for that. They know that it’s coming. We know that we’re going to provide it so it’s going to be a clash of a ball possession team against a really run-and-gun high intensity, relentless pressure team.”
The knock-out nature of hockey’s new quarter final format means that for one of the world’s top two ranked teams, there will be no shot at the medals in Rio come Sunday night (Monday morning Perth time).
The quarter final draw in full:
Sunday 14 August
10:00am: Spain v Argentina (5:00pm Perth)
12:30pm: Belgium v India (7:30pm Perth)
6:00pm: Netherlands v Australia (5:00am Perth, Monday)
8:30pm: Germany v New Zealand (7:30am Perth, Monday}
Lawrence West
olympics.com.au