Kookaburras Unbeaten in Five at Sultan Azlan Shah Cup

The Kookaburras have recorded a scrappy 3-1 win over Japan to extend their unbeaten campaign at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia to five matches.

It was a slow start to the game, with Japan keeping their defence tight against the Kookaburras, with no goals scored by either team in the first quarter.

Two minutes into the second quarter and Jamie Dwyer managed to dribble past three Japanese defenders to make a reverse stick, scoring the first goal of the match and getting Australia on the scoreboard.

Right at the 30 minute mark and Blake Govers increased Australia’s lead by slotting a penalty corner past the Japanese defence.
After the Kookaburras missed three penalty corners in close succession at the beginning of the third quarter, Jamie Dwyer turned things around by scoring a field goal, and extending Australia’s lead to 3 – 0.

Japan took their chance to fight back, forcing a penalty corner with a flick from Shota Yamada steered past goalkeeper Andrew Charter and into the net by Kentaro Fukuda. 

Japan fought hard in the final quarter of the match, successfully defending five chances at penalty corners from the Kookaburras.
Kookaburra’s Head Coach, Graham Reid said: “It was a disappointing game. We talk about testing ourselves against ourselves, and tonight we had patches which were OK and we held our structure, and parts where we were below par. 

“We have the match against Canada coming up on Friday, so we need to pick ourselves up as a build towards Rio.”
The Kookaburras next play Canada on Friday at 6.05pm Perth time.

The Kookaburras squad in Malaysia contains WAIS scholarship athletes Fergus Kavanagh, Aran Zalewski and Tyler Lovell.

-HockeyAus