The Hockeyroos remain optimistic despite losing their opening game to arch rivals Great Britain
DON’T judge a book by its cover. That’s how the Hockeyroos are dealing with their surprise loss to arch rivals Great Britain in their opening game of the competition.
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DON’T judge a book by its cover.
That’s how the Hockeyroos are dealing with their surprise loss to arch rivals Great Britain.
While it was a disappointing scoreline, 2-1, that didn’t reflect the way the Aussies played.
Throw in the fact the Games has a new format where the top four of each group are progressing through to finals, the first-up loss suddenly isn’t the end of the world.
“You don’t win or lose a medal in the first game,” Hockeyroos captain Madonna Blyth said.
“Tonight we have set the bar pretty high for ourselves. If we keep improving and keep playing that brand of hockey and tighten up a few things then we will be fine.”
Australia dominated for most of the opening half before Great Britain scored against the flow courtesy of a brilliant long ball that ended up with a quality lift by Lily Owsley over the keeper’s head.
That was the only score of the opening stanza with the Hockeyroos striking back three minutes into the second half after a classy conversion of a penalty corner by Georgina Morgan.
However, 10 minutes later with Edwina Bone off on a yellow card, Great Britain got Australia on the counter-attack, creating a three-on-one from which Alex Danson scored the match-winning goal.
The Hockeyroos came into the tournament ranked No.3 in the world but it’s a new-look team with 12 Olympic debutants.
Despite the changes and the unfortunate start, coach Adam Commens remains optimistic about what he thinks this team can achieve in Rio.
“I thought it was a pretty good performance throughout the pitch, I thought we dominated, on our stats we have 20 goals shots to four and when you create those opportunities you need to win the match,” he said.
“It is a wide open pool ours, with GB, the USA and Argentina who all have aspirations to win medals as well as us.
“As far as losing one match it doesn’t really change much for our tournament, we can still finish first in our pool with some quality performances.
“If you want to win medals you have to beat all of the teams. This has made it a bit tougher but GB rode their luck tonight.
“They got us on the counter as that’s how they play but if you look at the way we played and the brand of hockey we played, it was attacking, it was quick and we were the ones creating the play.
“If you do that you’re going to win more games than you lose and you’re going to put yourself in the chance to win medals.
“I’m not sure you win medals by just sitting back and defending.”
The Hockeyroos will be looking to bounce back against the USA tomorrow.
Originally published as The Hockeyroos remain optimistic despite losing their opening game to arch rivals Great Britain
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