Kookaburras Complete European Tour

The Kookaburras have saved their best for last, producing a 6-2 win over France in the final match of their tour of Europe at the Five Nations Challenge in Paris.

After a tour where the team has struggled at times, they were able to return to some good form during this match, scoring two unanswered goals in the first half.

The Kookaburras were well in control from the early stages. After several matches during this tour where they were unable to make the most of their scoring opportunities, they made no mistakes during this match, piling on four more goals in the second half.

The only negative for the Kookaburras was the fact that they once again conceded two more penalty corner goals, an unfortunate trend from their previous matches were they also conceded three penalty corner goals to Argentina and four penalty corner goals to Korea.

The team is now due to return to Australia having learnt a lot from these matches and will strive to improve their squad over the next 12 months ahead of the 2012 London Olympics.

Earlier:

The Kookaburras drew 4-4 with world number six Korea in their third match of the Five Nations Challenge in Paris.

The game saw Australia produce some impressive attacking play, however some defensive lapses saw them concede four penalty corner goals, the entirety of Korea’s score.

As they have done in all their matches to date at the Five Nations Challenge, the Kookaburras got off to a good start, opening the scoring at the four minute mark thanksto a goal to Russell Ford.

However, Korea was able to level scores only minutes later with the first of two penalty corner goals to Jong Hyun Jang.

The teams continued to trade goals until Korea took the lead for the first time in the match at the 55 minute mark, however Tim Bates equalised again with seven minutes to go.

The Kookaburras worked hard to find a winning goal, but failed at their own penalty corner attempts late in the game.

-Hockey Australia