A GOOD DAY FOR SPAIN. A report from yesterday's matches in the Investec Women's World League Semi Finals in London.

So what went wrong?  Hockey fans were looking forward to a match between England and Spain that had a goal scoring potential to elevate England to the top of Pool B.  In the final analysis you would have to say that Spain, playing in the last match of the pool stages of the Investec Women’s World League Semi Finals in London, had a very good game.

Spain clearly seemed to be on top form and placed the England defence under a fair bit of pressure in the early stages of the match, and threatened to do so during the entire 70 minutes.  You somehow felt that Spain would tire and England would settle down to win an easy victory, but it never happened.

The fact that it took 54 minutes for England to score says a lot about the balance of power. The goal, when it came, was from a penalty corner from Sophie Bray – who no doubt was urged on by a section of the crowd chanting “Sophie, Sophie” for most of the match.

Perhaps Bray’s goal was the expected turning of the tide, but less than four minutes later England were facing a penalty corner which resulted in the award of a penalty stroke.  In the press room there have been jokes about teams selecting players with the longest names to score.  On this occasion it was Lola Riera Zuzuarregui. 

1-1 was how the match ended.  All the positive things we have reported in the previous two matches were still there. The new blood have demonstrated amazing maturity and technical ability in this tournament. Perhaps it was just going to be Spain’s day.

Happily, the result makes no difference to the most probable outcome to this pool, and England finish in second place, two points behind Australia who won their match earlier in the day against South Africa 0-1.  England will play Italy in the quarter-finals tomorrow. Despite losing 4-0 to Argentina yesterday, Italy have done well for a team considered to be outsiders, and they play England by virtue of finishing third in Pool A.

Craig Parnham’s USA side looked as if they might record their first win in Pool A yesterday when they took an early lead against China with a goal from Paige Selenski.  It was a lead they lost within minutes and the match ended 1-2 in China’s favour.

Positions after the end of pool stages:

Pool A: 1. Argentina 9 pts (+6), 2. China 6 pts (+1), 3. Italy 3 pts (-4), 4. USA 1 pt (-3)
Pool B: 1. Australia 7 pts (+6), 2. England 5 pts (+3), 3. Spain 2 pts (-5), 4. South Africa 1 pt (-4)

Quarter finals are played between the top team of each pool against the bottom team of the other pool. Second placed team plays the third placed team of the other pool.

Tomorrow’s schedule (Thursday) is:

12:30 Argentina v South Africa
15:00 Australia v USA
17:30 China v Spain
20:00 England v Italy

We have lots of photographs from yesterday’s matches on our sister web site at www.HockeyImages.co.uk.