LONDON- Pakistan suffered nightmarish 7-0 defeat at the hands of a far superior and fiercely fast Australia in pool A of Olympics hockey that shattered dreams of the Asian nation not only for reaching the last four but even among the last six of the 12-nation competition here on Tuesday at the River bank side hockey arena.
The Netherlands defeated South Korea 4-2 to top the pool B with a fifth successive win which also allowed defending champions Germany to enter the semi-finals. Belgium moved a big step closer to third spot in Pool B as they had the clinical edge India lacked to run up a misleading 3-0 scoreline as Vincent Vanasch was by far the busier goalkeeper on the day. India end the pool phase with five losses from five and will now play South Africa for eleventh place on Saturday. Argentina came back from a 2-goal deficit to severely punish South Africa (6-3) and leave them bottom of the group. With the win, Argentina finished 5th in pool A and will play for 9th-10th on Thursday.
In the six-team pool A, Australia secured the semi-final spot after the win with 11 points while Great Britain and Spain will vie for the other semi spot later in the day. England has eight points and Spain seven. In case Spain upset the hosts it would jump to the semi-final spot relegating Great Britain to third spot in the table. But with the form and confidence that Great Britian had showed in earlier group matches it looks least likely that the team would lose as so far no upset results have been seen .In case of any other result one of the two teams will finish third on the table pushing Pakistan to the fourth placing which means that Pakistan would play for 7th to 8th position.
Australia led 4-0 at half time through goals from Liam De Young who converted a penalty-corner in 5th minute. A minute later Mark Knowles scored from a penalty stroke given after a penalty-corner. Christropher Ciriello scored in the 29th minute through a penalty-corner and just before half time he capped a fast field move to make it 4-0 as lemon time loomed.
Three more goals came in the second session with Russell scoring in 42nd minute and six minutes later Jamie Dwyer make the score 6-0. At the stroke of the final time Glenn Turner completed the score line. Pakistan’s performance against Australia was extremely poor. The attackers could not make any move worthy of goal or that could pose any threat to Aussie goal. They even did not get any penalty-corner as against eight of Australia which got three goals from them. The defence was too brittle and dull to stop the Australians who freely moved into Pakistani territory from the flanks through fast combined moves.
Early reverses also brought pressure on the Pakistanis. Conceding two goals within six minutes of push off was enough for Pakistan to go into defensive mould and forget about attacking. The attacks from the Australians were so many and so fast that Pakistanis had no time to regroup to attack. They were pinned inside their 25-yard line. The more they defended the more they came under pressure.
None other than the manager-cum-chief coach of Pakistan team, a stalwart of Pakistan hockey, Akhtar Rasool described the performance of the team perfectly correctly when he said in a post-match media briefing that he had not seen such a poor performance from Pakistan team in his hockey career spanning four decades.
Akhtar Rasool who captained Pakistan to gold medal in Bombay world cup in 1982 told the media Pakistani failed in attack, mid field and defence .He had no words of any praise for even any individual player. He praised the Australians who he said had outclassed his team. He however was hopeful of future of Pakistan and vowed to make efforts to get better results in future. About his future planning, he said he was given the charge of the team just four month ago and it was not possible to make improvement in the team in that period. Pointing out at Ric Charlesworth who was also there to talk to the media, he said ask Charlesworth and even he would agree that it was difficult to make improvement in such a short period. Pakistan skipper Sohail Ababs when asked about his future in Pakistan, said he would make his decision after the Olympics.
Former international Ric Charlesworth was happy that his team won by a big margin. He said he was expecting a much better performance from Pakistan who, he said, had played good matches against Spain, Argentina and South Africa and were unlucky to lose to Great Britain. He said his team started with the plan to clinch a draw but after the team earned two goals early in the match, the game turned in that team’s favour.