The England Hockey website shows a picture of Richard in plaster. He fractured and dislocated his right ankle. He is flying home in the middle of tonight (Friday) and will have an operation on Monday. He is said to be fine in himself, perhaps because he has already having been through two serious injuries previously and come back to play international hockey. The rest of the team, although shocked last night, are much better today.
Every team has a bogey side and New Zealand seem to be Korea's. Korea have only beaten New Zealand once in their last six meetings, back in 2005. Today they lost again, 2-1. New Zealand went up 2-0 in the first half. with a penalty corner strike from Andrew Hayward and a penalty stroke converted by captain Dean Couzins. Korea replied in the second half with a penalty corner conversion of their own by Nam Yong Lee. New Zealand are now above Korea in the group. They still have to play Germany, Korea and The Netherlands.
The second game of the day saw Canada playing a draw The Netherlands at half time, neither side managing to put the ball in the back of the net, despite the Dutch having three penalty corner chances. The second half was a different story.
The Dutch finally beat the Canadian keeper with a penalty corner strike from their (now) leading World Cup scorer ever, Taeke Taekema. This unleashed a plethora of goals as one by one first Ronald Brouwer, then Rogier Hofman, Rob Reckers and another from Hofman scored. Taekema then scored another penalty corner to make it 6-0 at the final whistle and six for his personal tally in this World Cup. A good win although coach Michel van den Heuvel will probably not be happy with their penalty corner conversion rate of 2 out of 8.
The most exciting match of the day was reserved for last. Germany took the lead as early as the fifth minute against Argentina through Martin Zwicker. Argentina leveled it a minute later through Lucas Martin Vila. By half time Germany had scored two more, another from Zwicker, this time from a penalty corner, and the second from Matthias Witthaus, but Argentina pulled one back on the stroke of half time with a penalty corner strike from Matias Enrique Paredes. The Germans made it 4-2 from another corner, this time Martin Haner scoring. With fifteen minutes to go Argentina pulled it back to 4-3 with their own corner strike from Pedro Ibarra. The Germans have their keeper to thank for keeping them in the lead as Argentina piled the pressure on, keeping them pinned in their own half for some time. Only their lack of finishing in front of goal was the difference, and ultimately the loss, between the two sides.
Summary of results from today (Friday):
Korea 1 NZ 2
Netherlands 6 Canada 0
Germany 4 Argentina 3
Pool positions are available on our World Cup page on our main web site at www.talkhockeyradio.co.uk.
England play India tomorrow in their penultimate pool match. Don't forget that you can watch this on Sky Channel 789 in the UK. Also, Ashley Jackson is in 'A Question of Sport' on BBC 1 at 4 p.m. tomorrow afternoon.
