HOCKEY: It was an improved performance from the Hockey5s in their last pool match against Canada at the Youth Olympic Sports Park tonight.

Coming off yesterday’s one goal loss to Spain, the Aussie’s wanted nothing more than to get back on the winner’s list.

The boys secured their second victory scoring five goals to two, showing great determination and defence to move into the quarter finals.

Nathanael Stewart was a standout for the Aussie’s tonight slotting home a goal but knows there is still a lot to improve on.

“We put a lot of strategies into what we have learnt from previous games and we just worked on developing those further by putting them into the game,” he said.

A different approach was brought into tonight’s match by the green and gold led from the front by Alec Rasmussen.

“We did a lot of research on Canada and they seemed to like the long shots so that was our main goal to shut those down. We had a really defensive mind set going into today’s game and it was great to see our plan work,” he said.

The game started well again for Australia getting out to a 2 nil lead at the first break but early in the second period, Canada reduced the margin to one.

Both sides traded a goal each to leave the score at 3-2 going into the final period. This time it was Australia’s turn to come out victorious.

Two goals in the third stanza put Australia through to the quarterfinals, coming second in their pool after Spain beat South Africa.

“We pride ourselves on our defensive structures and making sure we don’t get goals scored against us. To only have two scored against us all game was really pleasing,” Stewart said.

It now comes down to knock out, with Mexico being the boys next opponent.

“We’ve got a rest day tomorrow, so we will make sure all our recovery is 100% then look at footage and find ways where we can improve,” Stewart added.

Phillip Brent
Olympics.com.au
@AUSOlympicTeam