(Picture: England's Adam Dixon celebrates an England goal. Image courtesy of Pankaj Nangia / ActionPlus Images)Before the match started many neutrals were expecting England to walk the match against South Africa, but England made heavy weather of it. Maybe it was the heat of the day or their historic win against Australia, but England looked less than convincing as they struggled to overcome RSA.
South Africa opened the scoring after nine minutes when a strong run down the left from Justin Reid-Ross who saw his shot across the goal tapped in by number six, Marvin Harper. Five minutes later and England's number six, Richard Mantell, equalised from their only penalty corner of the half.
England took the lead when Rob Moore stole the ball from South Africa in the midfield, sped past the defender and smashed the ball past the keeper. It was Mantell again two minutes later, this time deflecting a cross by Lloyd Norris-Jones past James Fair into his own net. 2-2 at half-time.
In the second half England brought on Dan Fox, the late substitute for Matt Daly, for his first taste of World Cup Hockey. Although normally a defender he acquitted himself well as England pushed to take control. In an eight minute spell they forged ahead. Great work from captain Barry Middleton on the left who cut the ball back for Fox to dive in, with Ashley Jackson on hand to make sure it went in to make it 3-2. A strong run from England's youngest player, Nick Catlin, who picked up the rebound from his own shot which made it 4-2. And it was Catlin again who pushed forward and passed to Iain Mackay to score. 5-2.
England coasting? Not likely. Two minutes later South Africa had pulled one back when Harper doubled his tally, but Mantell completed his 'hat-trick' by scoring again from England's fifth penalty corner of the game. Finally over? South Africa had other ideas. They scored once more with three minutes to go through Thornton McDade. 6-4 the final score.
Coach Jason Lee was happy with the win. Six points after two matches, with one of them against Australia, and with two forwards Simon Mantell and Matt Daly out injured before the tournament began and Jonty Clarke sitting out with a hamstring niggle. He was less than impressed by some sloppy defending that gave the South Africans four goals.
As predicted, the Appeal Jury cut the three match ban on Shivendra Singh to two matches, meaning that he will miss the game against Australia and Spain but not the one against England on Saturday! At the press conference before the start of play on day three a number of Indian reporters commented on the fact that the TD was from Australia, but failed to understand that the Appeal Jury could have overturned his decision if they deemed it correct to do so. Their complaint being that India were playing Australia in the next match!
The atmosphere was electric as India came out to play Australia. After Australia's defeat by England it was important that they won today. They stunned the crowd in only the first minute with a goal from Liam de Young. By half-time they had increased their goal tally to three with goals from Glenn Turner and Des Abbott, but India struck back on the brink of half time with a strike from Vikram Pillay. Australia, however, took control in the second half and two goals in a minute from Luke Doerner and a second for Turner, took the steam out of the Indian attack. Only a superb save by keeper Adrian D'Souza from a Jamie Dwyer penalty stroke, kept the score to 5-2.
In the second game of the day, Pakistan looked more lively than in the game against India and beat Spain by 2-1. Pakistan took the lead on the half hour when a deflection off a Spanish stick was put in by Abdul Haseem Khan. Spain scored from a penalty corner five minutes from time through David Alegre, but there was still time for Khan to double his score when he made it 2-1 to Pakistan from a penalty corner two minutes later.
THE ANNUAL VARSITY MATCH was played at Southgate Hockey Centre this afternoon.
The women's game was won 3-2 by Oxford, with goals from Izzy Westbury, Charlotte Jackson and Rebeca Carpenter.
Oxford also won the men's match. Oxford's Edward Perry scored a hat-trick of penalty corners to give them a 3-1 victory.
