No England team will be competing in the
KO8 of the Euro Hockey League this season after Reading, Beeston and Surbiton
were each knocked out of Round 2 in Eindhoven today.
Surprisingly, the best effort probably came
from new-boys Surbiton, who took on the hosts, Oranje Zwart. 0-1 down after
only two minutes when Gabriel Dabanch opened the scoring, Surbiton regained
some shape as the match progressed, and 15 minutes later Rob More scored an
equaliser.
The sides seemed equally matched, until in
the second half Oranje Zwart took control of the game and added two more to
their tally thanks to Rob Reckers and Mink van der Weerden. Final score, 3-1 to
Oranje Zwart.
Earlier we had seen Beeston get off to a
promising start with a goal scored within seconds of the starting whistle being
sounded. We are curious to know whether
this is an EHL record. The scorer, as you would expect from Beeston, was Sam
Ward. But just before half-time Nicolas Vandiest equalized for the Ducks, and
scored a second eight minutes into the third quarter.
The last ten minutes saw four goals
scored. Alexandre De Paeuw and Gilles
Jacob brought the Ducks’s score up to 4-1, before Beeston went through a mini
revival which saw San Ward reach his hat trick, with goals in the 66th
and 69th minutes. Final score, 4-3 to the Ducks.
One black spot in the match was an injury
to skipper Adam Dixon, who was felled by a crunching tackle which saw him leave
the pitch for treatment. He returned
later but took no further part in the match.
Reading, England’s most experienced
European campaigners, had a poor match against old adversaries, RC Polo de
Barcelona. Barcelona went into the
second half leading 3-0, and although Andy Watts and Nick Catlin scored to put
a potential win on the cards, Reading were sunk by a 69th minute Xavier
Blanco gaol. Final score, 4-2 to Barcelona.
In today’s other match, Racing Club
Bruxelles progress though to the last eight after winning their match against
Rot-Weiss Koln on a shoot-out decider.
Round 3, sometimes called the KO8, is
played tomorrow, and sees three Belgian, two Spanish, two Dutch and one German
team fighting it out for a place in Sunday’s Semi-finals. Quite apart from the
disappointment of not reaching the last eight, England are in danger of losing
their status as a country that has three entrants into the League. Belgium will
maintain or increase their ranking points, whilst Spain has got both its clubs
though to the last eight.
Tomorrow’s matches are:
Club de Campo v Harvestehuder
Waterloo Ducks v Racing Club de Bruxelles
Waterloo Ducks v Racing Club de Bruxelles
Rotterdam v KHC Dragons
Oranje Zwart v RC Polo de Barcelona
