12-03-2010 10th place it is for the South African's
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New Delhi, India
Day:20
Friday, 12 March 2010
(Game 6, 15:30 GMT +5:30)
South Africa vs. New Zealand
Our World Cup has come to an end. Finishing 10 th is certainly not what we were aiming for, so to end up here is a disappointment, despite it being three places higher than our world ranking of 13th.
I think we should be kicking ourselves at the missed opportunity today. To have the lead with less than thirty seconds to go and let it slip is poor.
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Australia are the 2010 World Cup Champions
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We were lucky to have the lead at half time; Rassie Pieterse made a number of fantastic saves to have us 1-0 at the break. We played well in the second half I thought, perhaps not showing quite enough patience on attack but our defence as a team looked far better.
New Zealand?s failure to score in the last movement of the game left it at 4-4 and it meant two halves of seven and a half minutes, golden goal.
No one really created anything so strokes were left to decide who would finish 9 th. Unfortunately we weren?t able to finish off another good performance, losing on sudden death penalty strokes 5-4.
Our 10 th place finish equals our best ever finish of 10 th at the 1994 World Cup.
Final Score 4-4 (draw) 5-4 (sudden death penalty strokes, loss)
Final World Cup Standings:
1. Australia
2. Germany
3. Holland
4. England
5. Spain
6. Spain
7. Korea
8. Argetina
9. India
10. South Africa
11. Canada
12. Pakistan