HOCKEY: The Kookaburras have suffered a second half fade out for the second match in a row, giving up a 3-0 lead early in the second half with the end result a 3-3 draw with Great Britain.

The result means that Australia is yet to book their spot in the semi-final with one match still to come against Pakistan.

A win against Pakistan will virtualy seal top spot on in the pool, while a draw or even a loss could be enough to see them go through depending on results from other matches.

The Kookaburras made a brilliant start to this crucial match, looking to take the vocal GB crowd out of the situation.

They did just that, with Russell Ford scoring twice within the first ten minutes to give them a crucial lead.

Despite trailing on the scoreboard, GB were far from out of the game, pushing the Kookaburras for the whole half and coming close to scoring on several occasions.

Their best chance came via a penalty corner towards the end of the half, however it was well saved to ensure the Kookaburras maintained their lead leading into the half time break.

It looked as though the Kookaburras had iced the game when Mark Knowles scored the Kookaburras third goal early in the second half.

However Great Britain continued to fight, getting on the score board with 23 minutes left.

When they scored again only minutes later to make it 3-2, the game was well and truly alive.

The Kookaburras had a chance to extend their lead when they were awarded their first penalty corner of the match, however the shot was saved.

Throwing everything at Australia, Great Britain scrambled their third goal with four minutes to go, levelling the match.

Kookaburras coach Ric Charlesworth his team had their chances to finish the game but didn’t take them.

“I think it was pretty even in the second half and we had the acendency in the first half but we didn’t make the most of it which was disappointing. No doubt the crowd build momentum and it helped GB today but it is something we need to be able to handle and we didn’t today. We had opportunities to close off the game and we didn’t take them, we need to get better at that,” said Charlesworth.

Shaun Anderson in London
olympics.com.au