Second Half Fightback Secures Kookaburras Win

For the second time in as many days, the Kookaburras have overturned a deficit to beat England as final preparations for the defence of their 2010 World Cup title continue.

As they had on Saturday, goals from Kieran Govers and Chris Ciriello overturned a 1-0 disadvantage to give the Aussie men victory – this time 3-1 – ahead of their arrival in The Hague on Monday.

The Kookaburras found themselves behind to a goal from Englishman Phil Roper after a slow start and were trailing 1-0 at the break before but an excellent second half performance saw Govers score twice followed by Ciriello’s penalty corner goal.

Govers’ first, in the 49th minute, was a well hit shot from the top of the circle while his second seven minutes later was a pinpoint low penalty corner. Ciriello rounded things off with a penalty corner flick of his own with six minutes remaining.

24 year old Mackay defender Matthew Swann celebrated his 100th appearance for Australia in the match, putting behind him a frustrating year that saw him miss eight months through injury following last June’s World League Semi Final tournament in Rotterdam.

Afterwards, Kookaburras coach Ric Charlesworth, who played at four World Cups and is preparing for his fourth as a coach, said his side would need to improve to ensure they don’t find themselves chasing matches at the World Cup.

“We started poorly. We are still a bit rusty and there’s a bit of work to do. In the first part of the first half we were outplayed, then we got better and they scored against the run of play. But in the second half we played better and better and better and overran them in the end. We don’t want to put ourselves in that position too often,” he said.

The Kookaburras leave England for the Netherlands on Monday morning and face Argentina (Wednesday) and Germany (Thursday) in shortened practise matches to complete preparations for their title defence.

WAIS scholarship holders Fergus Kavanagh, Aran Zalewski and Tyler Lovell each represented Australia in the match and will form part of the Kookaburras’ squad for the World Cup.

Australia’s men begin their title defence in the opening game of the tournament against Malaysia at 4:30pm Perth time next Saturday. Highlights of that match and full coverage of the Hockeyroos’ opener against Korea are available on ABC 2. The Kookaburras’ match will be available live and in full on the FIH YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/fihockey.

-HockeyAustralia