‘Burras win gold

Australia has won its third straight gold in a tense final over Pakistan in the men’s hockey today at the State Netball and Hockey Centre.

The Kookaburras outclassed their opponents and the 3-0 scoreline didn’t reflect the stronghold the hosts had on the contest.

With captain Bevan George back in the team after a bug that sidelined him for the last two games, the Australians got off to a positive start when livewire Jamie Dwyer had a shot saved in the opening minute.

The game turned ugly with a series of altercations in the first half. Pakistan captain Muhammad Saqlain and Australian forward Michael McCann exchanged pleasantries and Shakeel Abbasi shouldered McCann behind the play, with the Pakistani receiving a green card for his efforts.

But while Pakistan was verbalising, Australia started scoring. Liam De Young latched on to a series of passes from a penalty corner and put the ball in the net from the near post after 17 minutes to give the Kookaburras a deserved lead.

Pakistan were sitting back and hitting the Australians on the break, but they failed to convert a few half-chances.

The visitors had a golden opportunity to equalise when Abbasi hit a clear shot from inside the area, but it flew wide.

It would be Pakistan’s best scoring chance of the game.

The sides went into the break with the score 1-0, and no doubt both sides would have enjoyed the break with the mercury climbing above 30° celcius.

After half-time it was the Aussies that sizzled as Pakistan tired and lost their cool.

Tariq Aziz was red-carded for an incident with Australian Robert Hammond, which forced a heavily bleeding Hammond of the pitch. Aziz had lifted the back of his stick – seemingly deliberately – into Hammond’s face, with Hammond requiring six stitches above his lip.

With the man advantage the Aussies missed a litany of chances, but Luke Doerner finally put a shot away from the Kookaburras’ fourth consecutive penalty corner.

Minutes later Jamie Dwyer completed a 360° spin as the Pakistan keeper came out to him, and hit the ball behind his body and into the empty net to send Australia 3-0 up and the crowd into delirium.

Australian coach Barry Dancer hopes that hockey’s governing body will look at the incident that forced Hammond off the pitch swiftly.

“I didn’t see it, so I can’t comment on the incident, but I think the FIH (the International Hockey Federation) obviously needs to act quickly, certainly on the back of two suspensions in the one tournament, and the World Cup qualifier very imminent, I think it’s only fair that it be dealt with extremely quickly.”

Dancer said that the fact Australia didn’t retaliate to Pakistan’s niggling is a sign of their discipline.

“I think the team played with a lot of discipline through the tournament, so today was just a further example of that.”

Earlier today, Malaysia defeated England 2-0 to clinch bronze with two goals either side of half-time.

Tengku Ahmad fired the Malaysians in front in the first half, and a converted penalty stroke by Rahim Muhamad Amin with 25 minutes to go in the game was enough to see off the English who were favourites heading into this bronze-medal playoff.

Despite sustained pressure and three consecutive penalty corners in the last five minutes, a jubilant Malaysia held on to claim their second hockey medal in Games history, after they won silver at the 1998 Games in Kuala Lumpur.

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