Visa International Invitational Hockey Tournament

Match Report

In their first game at the Visa International Invitational Hockey Tournament Great Britain gave a gutsy performance against Beijing Olympic Gold medallists Germany, but found themselves on the end of a 3-1 defeat.

In the absence of East Grinstead’s Barry Middleton, club teammate Glenn Kirkham took over the role of Captain for the match.

The game started at a fierce tempo, both sides with chances early doors. Germany had the best of these chances with two penalty corners inside the first five minutes.  The first of which was well saved by goalkeeper James Fair of Cannock and the second of which was stopped by Reading’s Iain Mackay at the expense of an injury which saw him take little part in the rest of the game.

The match was played with fantastic home support; the 4000 strong crowd singing throughout the game despite the persistent rain.

Mid-way through the first half Surbiton’s Richard Alexander found himself with time on the edge of the circle after some neat 1-2-1 play with Ashley Jackson, but his searching pass across goal didn’t manage to find a stick.

When the Germans did attack they looked dangerous, but the defensive line stood strong; Richard Smith with a fantastic block to stop one goal bound shot and Fair looked making several top draw saves to keep Germany at bay.

The video umpire was called on successfully by Iain Lewers and Great Britain with ten minutes left to overturn a penalty corner decision.  In the final few minutes of the half a chance fell to Germany as they piled bodies into the circle to attack, but Matthias Witthaus shot wide from a narrow angle leaving the score line blank at half time.

The first goal came in somewhat unusual circumstances at the very start of the second half as Great Britain were still returning to the pitch. The Germans were instructed to start by the officials and immediately attacked the scrambling GB defence; Florian Fuchs hitting a deflected shot past Fair in goal.

Following some good build up play, Surbiton’s James Tindall created space inside the circle and hit a good reverse stick shot at Nicolas Jacobi in the German goal who made a good save.  Germany went down to ten men for five minutes following a yellow card for Tobias Hauke on 44 minutes.

With a one man advantage Great Britain pushed forward with some good build up play, but the only half chance fell to Ashley Jackson who cheekily flicked a ball backwards towards goal only to see it come off the post after the keeper had been beaten.

The second goal came on the 52nd minute; a straight forward penalty corner routine finished off by Christopher Zeller who drove the ball low and to the left of a diving Fair.  It took just another two minutes for the Germans to take a three goal lead as Great Britain gave away a penalty stroke for a stick tackle on Thilo Stralkowski in the circle. Moritz Fuerste adding his name to the score sheet.

With just nine minutes to go Great Britain won their first penalty corner of the half.  Some intricate passing between Jackson and Smith resulted in a penalty stroke being awarded, which Jackson finished with precision flicking the ball into the top left of the netting to bring a goal back.

Great Britain pushed forward and in the final minute they were awarded another penalty corner.  Once again the duo of Jackson and Smith lined up, but this time Jackson shot just wide of the left hand post leaving the final score at 3-1.

Speaking after the game GB Head Coach Jason Lee said, “This was our first game with the crowd in the Olympic Park and it’s encouraging to think that the 16,000 Olympic crowd is going to be four times noisier than the 4000 we had tonight.  The result today is a little disappointing, particularly one of the goals, but there is a lot to be optimistic about and I think that the performances of both teams will be better in the summer.”

Earlier on in the day Australia beat India 3-0 to top the pool.  Great Britain’s next encounter is against India tomorrow at 18:30.

Standings