England’s Women made a comfortable start to their campaign with a 4-0 victory against a Belgium side who were fortified by some magnificent support from the crowd.
Coach Danny Kerry was, however, less than happy with his team’s performance, describing them as “slow on the ball and slow in the tackle” and describing the performance level as “not what it needs to be”.
England had ten penalty corners, scoring from three of them. Alex Danson forced a corner rebound in for the opening goal in the 13th minute. Chloe Rogers increased the lead with a fine individual effort soon afterwards but open play chances were scarce.
Second half corner conversions by Crista Cullen and Kate Walsh, the latter a stupendous flick which found favour with Kerry, secured victory.
Germany, England’s next opponents, produced a workmanlike but scarcely inspiring performance to beat Ireland 3-0.
In the other pool The Netherlands beat Azerbaijan 8-0, despite the Azerbaijanis having two successful appeals against the award of Dutch penalty corners. Maartje Paumen, an inspirational captain and centre half, scored a hat trick of corners and there was also a hat trick for Kim Lammers while Ellen Hoog scored the goal of the day.
The opening match which featured Spain beating Italy 4-0 was an error-strewn monstrosity. Is 10.00 a.m. too early for international hockey?
Germany and Belgium started the Men’s tournament with a cracking encounter which the Germans won 3-1. End to end it may have been, but amazingly there were only three penalty corners in the match with the Germans earning only one.
Photographs from today’s matches are available to view at our Pictures web site www.hockeyimages.co.uk.
England’s men play Ireland at 10.00 (CET+1) tomorrow morning (Sunday 21st).
