28-02-2010 SA Men Lose 4-2 in World Cup Opener

New Delhi, India
Day: 8
Monday, 1 March 2010
(Game 1, 16:35 GMT +3:30)

South Africa vs. Spain

South Africa, ranked 13 th and Spain 3 rd, played the opening game of the World Cup on Sunday evening in New Delhi, India. South Africa, competing in their 4 th World Cup, has only 5 players from their last Championship team which finished 12th in Germany back in 2006. This is however all in the past and has no bearing on what this new team can achieve.

Hopefully most of you were able to take an extended lunch break and watch the match live on SuperSport or online. We started far better than Spain, making fewer errors and looked comfortable on the ball. Julian Hykes scored the opening goal of the World Cup after Ian Haley disposed Ribas at the half way line and played a fine through to Julian who finished superbly giving South African a 1-0 lead.

Spain scored twice before half time through Oliva and Delas.

We struck back through Ian Haley when he forced the ball over the line in a messy goal scramble which saw us end the half 2-2. We went into the break feeling fairly pleased with our performance. The pitch is still not making pure flowing hockey particularly easy as it?s been recently re-laid.

The second half was a different story, Spain made far fewer mistakes and stepped a lot harder closing down our space. It took just 10 minutes for Spain to reclaim the lead through Garza. Despite our referral the third umpire deemed the tackle not to be a foul and the goal stood. Spain continued to out pressure and took the score to 4-2 61st minute through a well executed corner.

A disappointing result after we gave ourselves a good platform in the first half. Still, we can take heart from the energy which we produced and the sustained pressure we applied to the Spaniards.

We now face England in two days time.

Final Score 2-4 (loss)

How did things go for the rest of Pool B. England beat Australia 3-2, Australia did have twelve short corners and only managed to convert one. A massive result for the English team though. In the main game of the day, India defeated Pakistan 4-1 in an almost capacity stadium, what a spectacle to witness!

A reminder of the official tournament website:
www.worldhockey.org/worldcup