Kookaburras beat Dutch in one sided affair

After opening their Champions Trophy campaign with a dominant performance against Korea, Australia remains unbeaten after a 7-2 drubbing of world number four the Netherlands.

Coming off a performance that coach Ric Charlesworth believed wasn’t a super performance from his charges, the Kookaburras responded with a much improved and disciplined performance.

Grant Shubert was the hero for Australia, scoring a hat trick that included two goals within a minute and star striker Jamie Dwyer also got his name on the scorers list with a 61st minute field goal to all but seal a dominant performance.

Others to score for the Kookaburras were Glen Turner (19th minute), Brent Dancer (22nd minute) and Luke Doerner (51st) via a penalty corner goal.

For the Dutch, Taeke Taekema scored during the opening minutes from a penalty and Robert Kemperman (68th) added another from the field in what was an otherwise disappointing performance.

The Kookaburras played a slicker brand of hockey and have firmed as favourites to claim back to back Champions Trophy titles.

Kookaburras coach Ric Charlesworth’s continual use of the bench, allowed for constant fresh legs and fast ball movement throughout the match. This resulted in the match going deep into the second half.

Charlesworth thought his team was improved, but there are still things to work on before Tuesday night’s clash against England.

“Again, I thought we were a bit flattered,” he said.

“We got caught in the first minute that has to be rectified with because it was a slip.”

“I think at 5-1 at half-time the game drifted a bit and we were purposeless, we can be better than that and that’s the challenge for us.”

Captain Dwyer felt that his team put in a more complete performance after being nervous the Koreans.

“It was a little bit nerving yesterday I think; we didn’t let them (Netherlands) so have so many opportunities,” he said.

“Korea had a few opportunities against us, still there were patches there where we could be a lot better but overall it was nice to score seven goals.”

The Kookaburras play European champions England in what should be a closely contested match on Tuesday evening.

Earlier, Korea rebounded from yesterday’s loss to the Kookaburras with a 5-3 defeat of the world’s number one team Germany.

Day two action was rounded out when the English drew with Spain 3-3 in the late game this afternoon.

Australia 7 (Schubert 8m PS/33m FG/ 4m FG, Turner 19m FG, Dancer 22m PC, Doerner 51m PC, Dwyer 61m FG)
Netherlands 2 (Taekema 3m PC, Kemperman 68m FG)
Venue: State Hockey and Netball Centre, Melbourne.

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