It seems amazing that a second string
German side could contain a player of the quality of Moritz Furste
but, like England, the Germans have been at the World League Finals
and Furste has been recovering from injury. But you have to hand it
to their Austrian opponents in the European Indoor Championships
finals here in Vienna. They took the Germans to the wire.
We've seen a lot of time-wasting over
the last few days (something which England were not guilty of) but
both the Germans and the Austrians looked as if they wanted to play
hockey the old fashioned way - lots of attacking and lots of robust
defending.
The Germans were in charge for much of
the match, with Furste's talents complimented by Richardo Nevado –
an indoor natural. But the Austrians had a fair share of attacking
play and not a little flair.
The lead swung backwards and forwards
between the two sides, with the Germans having a two goal lead with
less than two minutes left. It was enough time for Austria's
Micheal Korper to score twice, making his compliment in the match
four in total.
At 5-5 the match went to a shoot-out
and, when the issue went to sudden death, who should step up to score
the winning goal? 'Magic' Moritz Furste of course.
Somewhat less entertaining was the
match for the bronze medal, which was won by Russia.
And what of England? Their match this
morning in the relegation pool was far from their best. You can
somehow forgive them that. To have played so well in four matches,
only to avoid defeat once, must have had a sapping affect on them.
But they were not bad. They were just not as good as they had been
on the previous two days.
Just for the record England took an
early lead which they built on soon after the second half started.
The scorers were Chris Griffiths and Simon Egerton. Unfortunately,
England seemed to run out of fresh ideas – and they have been quite
innovative at times - and the match ended 2-3 to the Czech Republic.
The result meant that England finished
at the bottom of the relegation pool and are now relegated to
Championships II.
Photographs from the weekend are on our
web site at www.HockeyImages.co.uk.
