Kookaburras Two from Two at Azlan Sultan Shah
Two goals from Australia’s most capped player Jamie Dwyer and a last minute strike from Dylan Wotherspoon has helped the Kookaburras to a 3-2 win over hosts Malaysia at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup.
In a re-match of the 2014 final, neither team was able to convert their attacking opportunities to an advantage on the scoreboard.
Australia finally broke through the Malaysian defence in the 43rd minute, after Jamie Dwyer was awarded a penalty stroke due to unfair play in Australia’s attacking circle. Stepping up to the spot, Dwyer flicked the ball on-target and into the back of the net, giving Australia the lead.
Dwyer was well positioned 10 minutes later to double Australia’s advantage when he got a quick shot away following a neat Kookaburras attack.
Malaysia halved the deficit on the 57th minute mark with Firhan Ashari on the end of a slick team move.
Queenslander, Dylan Wotherspoon seemingly wrapped up Australia’s win in the 59thminute, only for the game to take a dramatic twist with Tengku Ahmad scoring an immediate reply for Malaysia’s second goal, which set up a tense finale. Time however, ran out for the hosts, with the full time score presenting a 3-2 win for the Kookaburras.
Kookaburras Head Coach Graham Reid said after the match, “We created a lot of opportunities tonight, it was probably some of our best hockey that we have played in a while however, we needed to better execute in the circle.
“The halftime message was to stay patient with the process that we are going through and things will eventually come, and sure enough they did. We lacked energy late in the second half, which allowed the crowd to get behind Malaysia and help them.
“Overall, I was really pleased with our efforts tonight, we still have a lot of work to do on our penalty corners and set plays however, that’s something we will be working on.”
Reviewing the Kookaburras’ performance from their previous 7-0 win over Canada on Sunday night, Reid discussed the team’s plan of attack coming into tonight’s match with Malaysia.
“Tonight we mainly wanted to try and keep the crowd out of the game by scoring early. The idea was for us to dictate the game, making the play rather than sitting back waiting for Malaysia, as well as applying the pressure.”
Three Western Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holders played in the match, with Tristan Clemons, Trent Mitton and Aran Zalewski all wearing the green and gold.
During the match, the Kookaburras paid their respects to former Kookaburra and Olympian Paul Dearing, wearing black armbands in his commemoration. Dearing first played for Australia in 1963 against New Zealand and retired after the Munich Olympics in 1972, having played in three Olympic Games.
The Kookaburras’ third match of the Sultan Azlan Shah will be against Korea on Wednesday 8 April, 8:30pm AEST/6:30pm AWST.
Earlier:
In his record-breaking 322nd appearance for Australia’s Kookaburras, Jamie Dwyer showed that he is still as hungry as ever, scoring Australia’s fourth goal – his 207th in the green and gold – in a 7-0 win over Canada on day one of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia.
At the other end of the experience spectrum, Victorian Tim Cross, making his debut for the Kookaburras, set things in motion with his first goal for his country just 12 minutes into the match. It was followed a minute later by young Queenslander Dylan Wotherspoon’s first goal in just his fifth senior appearance, putting Australia in the driving seat.
Despite the World Champions’ dominance over the 15th-ranked Canadians it remained 2-0 until shortly before three-quarter time when Eddie Ockenden struck a third. Dwyer, 36, this week tipped Ockenden, 28, to be the man to eventually replace him at the top of Australia’s all-time appearances list with Ockenden 100 caps behind the Olympic gold medallist. The Tasmanian was later named Man of the Match.
As the game entered its final ten minutes and play began to open up Dwyer struck, marking his return to senior international hockey after almost nine months away. His last game, and last goal, came in June’s World Cup final 6-1 demolition of the Netherlands in The Hague with the two-time World Cup winner not selected for the Commonwealth Games and ruled out of the Champions Trophy in December through injury.
With the goal the floodgates opened. Just 60 seconds later Western Australian forward Trent Mitton made it 5-0, closely followed by a Glenn Simpson penalty corner goal and a strike by Jake Whetton, who rounded off the scoring for 7-0.
Speaking after the match, Kookaburras Head Coach Graham Reid called it a “reasonable performance”, adding, “We created a lot of opportunities and enough of them early on to score pretty well. Canada were dogged in defence and we missed a lot of chances in the first half but our second half was better. Our penalty corners need work and we hit the post twice. We’ve got lots of work to do on our set pieces.
– HockeyAus
