Kookaburras get Rio campaign off to winning start with nervy win over New Zealand
A SLOPPY second half and a controversial overrule of a New Zealand goal was the story of the Kookaburras opening victory in its quest for Rio redemption.
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A SLOPPY second half and a controversial overrule of a New Zealand goal was the story of the Kookaburras opening victory in its quest for Rio redemption.
The gold medal favourites led 2-0 at half-time but were under siege late in the game with the Kiwis drawing level midway through the last quarter before a successful challenge by Australia captain Mark Knowles had the goal overturned.
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“It was a good referral wasn’t it? I wasn’t sure, I thought it was dangerous but it might have been going in,” Knowles said.
“I thought to myself there is seven-and-a-half minutes to go in the game so I have to give it a go.”
New Zealand coach Colin Batch said the decision should set the tone for the tournament.
“We understand it was dangerous with the first hit against one of the Aussie defenders,” he said.
“It does set a precedent for the rest of the tournament, any ball that’s lifted that’s not going in should be blown and that wasn’t the case today.
“I’m not saying there should have been goals or stopped other goals but that one was critical for us.”
Knowles had another stroke of luck with the officials in the final minute with another referral which the New Zealand players were adamant would give them one last attacking push, but it also went the Kookaburras way.
Australia’s opening goal came from Chris Ciriello at the eight-minute mark while veteran Jamie Dwyer, playing in his fourth Olympic Games, produced a brilliant assist to Matt Gohdes for the second after 23 minutes.
They should have had more goals with the Kiwis barely getting forward in the opening half, with Jacob Whetton in particular causing havoc.
But then in the opening minute of the second half, a bad error from goalkeeper Andrew Charter allowed New Zealand captain Simon Child to score.
Knowles admitted his team had got nervous in the second half but would be better for the experience.
“I think there was a bit of nerves, a bit of apprehension,” he said.
“The good thing about it was the first half was what we want, we want to put the opposition under as much pressure as possible, as early as possible.
“We got those two goals but still we didn’t take the chances we should of, you can really kill teams who aren’t alive in the first half and we should have done that.
“The disappointing part was some individual errors by us all in the second half but we know we can get so much better.
“I think we probably relaxed a little bit at 2-0, that is a bad scoreline in all sports, then we probably started to think about those errors too much. I saw a few guys looking around thinking, ‘Why did I do that? Why aren’t we scoring?’.
“And then New Zealand woke up. Teams aren’t used to the pressure we put under them so it took them 30 minutes to wake up and that is why you want to get three or four goals to the good before they do that.”
Gosper said World Rugby hoped to have 10 million people pla
Knowles has been under an injury cloud coming into the Games because of a foot stress fracture but reported no issues in the opening game.
“Today I thought to myself, ‘I’m here, I’m fine’, and I didn’t feel it. I’ve just got some general soreness.”
The Kookaburras, who have finished third at the past two Olympic Games despite being ranked world No.1, now play Spain.
Originally published as Kookaburras get Rio campaign off to winning start with nervy win over New Zealand
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