England's last opportunity to come away with more than one point from the round-robin stages of the Women's Champion's Trophy in Sydney were thwarted by China earlier today. China, whose record in this tournament before the game matched England's (three defeats and one draw), opened the scoring after 23 minutes with a penalty corner strike by their star Olympian Ma Yibo.
Fu Boarong scored China's second early in the second half and England's hopes were briefly raised when Becky Herbert replied from a penalty corner shortly afterwards. It was Herbert's second goal of the tournament. But China's penalty corner striking proved decisive - China's modest position in the table belies their penalty corner conversion rate – and Song Qingling and Zhao Yudiao scored from corners to give China a 4-1 victory.
England meet China again tomorrow in the 5th/6th place play-off. Coach Danny Kerry will have a reduced squad to pick from with key players Helen Richardson and Alex Danson being unavailable due to illness. Of his available fit players he was only able to rest 'keeper Beth Storry today.
In other matches Australia overcame the Netherlands 2-1 to finish second in the table and secure themselves a place in the finals tomorrow. The other finalists are Argentina, who played out a 0-0 draw against Germany today.
Table at completion of round-robin stage.
P | W | D | L | GF | GA | PTS | ||
1 | Argentina | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 4 | 10 |
2 | Netherlands | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 8 |
3 | Australia | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 7 |
4 | Germany | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
5 | China | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 9 | 4 |
6 | England | 5 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 16 | 1 |
