Tokyo Olympics 2021: Hockeyroos knocked out after quarter-final loss to India
After 12 months of hell, the Hockeyroos have completed their Olympic goal despite a heartbreaking quarter-final loss.
Just like that, the Hockeyroos are out of the Olympics. Only tears remain in Tokyo.
At full-time, India cheered and squealed after pulling off an incredible upset while Australia painfully fell to the ground.
On Saturday Katrina Powell warned that their unbeaten start, where they conceded just one goal and netted 13 themselves, meant nothing.
By Monday, they felt that painful lesson for the second straight Olympics campaign.
“Totally gutted,” Powell said.
“India are obviously a very good team; very skilful and very fast and ready for it today. I felt like we were ready to go, ready to play, it just wasn’t our day.”
India, having scraped into the quarter-finals winning just two of their five pool matches, are through to the semi-finals after upsetting Australia 1-0 at Oi Hockey Stadium.
A second-quarter goal to Gurjit Kaur was the difference, as she scored her first goal to put India into the medal matches from a penalty corner.
For a group that had gone through the ringer in recent years and came together at the eleventh hour under Powell, Monday’s defeat stings.
“It’s very exciting the future of the Hockeyroos,” Powell said.
“The resilience that they’ve shown to get here to this point, the way they have played, the way they have shown up, it’s a credit to them but also the future going forward they’ve left a great legacy.”
Hitherto, the Hockeyroos had been riding a wave of momentum.
Down and almost out, Powell said pre-tournament that she hoped the tribulation of the past 12 months, where an independent review made 29 recommendations to Hockey Australia earlier in the year and labelled the Hockeyroos’ culture as “dysfunctional”, would see the group fly under the radar.
With the benefit of a favourable draw, the Hockeyroos were at last singing from the same song-sheet under their two-time gold medallist.
But finals matches are a different animal and just like that, their dreams of taking home gold are over.
Goalkeeper Rachel Lynch, who only returned to the Hockeyroos in autumn after winning a 150-day legal challenge against Hockey Australia after being demoted because she challenged an archaic system, spoke beautifully about the positive future the game now has.
“We’ve all been through a lot together, and we’ve rebuilt the team, we’ve put in something we can all be proud of,” Lynch said, before pausing to control her emotions.
“It’s never been about winning a medal here, certainly for me personally, that was the dream but I just really wanted Australia to be proud of the Hockeyroos again.
“All those young girls in Australia, we want them to play our sport.”
The Hockeyroos started sprightly, with Rosie Malone striking the near post from a threatening ball from the corner by young gun Amy Lawton.
From there though the Indians grew.
They did not so much as dominate, but they looked the more threatening side in front of goals.
They too struck the back post and had the Hockeyroos jittery.
In the end, those nerves got the better of them as they failed to deal with a penalty corner.
Only Emily Chalker, the veteran striker who scored five goals in the pools, looked a genuine threat throughout the tournament.
Yet too often she found herself away from the goals and forced wide as the Hockeyroos struggled on the counter.
After failing to put a shot on goals from a number of penalty corners as they tried to be too cute with their variations eventually Maddy Fitzpatrick fired three shots on goal late in the fourth corner, but each were well saved.
The Kookaburras play Germany in their semi-final on Tuesday night.
Hockeyroos grab highest seeding with undefeated run
It will not ease the pain from five years ago, but the Hockeyroos extracted some revenge for their Rio quarter-final exit on Thursday night to seal top spot in Pool B.
A typically fine finish from Emily Chalker early in the third quarter and an exceptional diving save from goalkeeper Rachael Lynch was enough for the Hockeyroos to seal a 1-0 victory at Oi Stadium in Tokyo.
The victory was the Hockeyroos’ fourth straight to start their campaign and means they have sealed the highest seeding going into the quarterfinals with a game to spare.
It is also their best start to a Games since winning gold at Atlanta in 1996 – a match coach Katrina Powell played in.
But judging by the moans of frustration from Powell in the final quarter, there is much still to do before the knockout stages.
“That’s pretty much the Australian way. Australians have been complaining for a long time in hockey circles that we don’t convert enough of our chances that we do create and certainly that’s continuing with our group over the last couple of games,” Powell told News Corp.
“So getting those outcomes in the circle are things in particular that we’re trying to focus on and get better at. There’s not an easy solution or it would have solved by someone well before my time, but we’ve got to keep peppering it, keep persisting and eventually they’ll start to come.”
The Hockeyroos lacked a killer instinct in the opening half and only had one shot. They failed to take advantage of their opportunities in the second half either.
In the easier of the two pools, the Hockeyroos will have to be much more clinical against the likes of the Netherlands, Germany and even Great Britain if they want to get on the podium.
Still, for a squad that has been through hell and back over the past year, Powell will be satisfied that her team is managing to scrape together wins — even if they are leaving goals out on the pitch.
“If you had have told me that at this point in the competition we’d be sitting on top of the ladder I would have been knocked over by a feather,” Powell said.
It took a fine finish from Chalker, who scored her fourth of the tournament, for the deadlock to be broken between these trans-Tasman rivals that have had five draws in their past seven matches.
A threatening ball from Savannah Fitzpatrick saw Chalker deflect the ball into the goal.
You could have been mistaken for thinking the nippy striker was Sam Kerr with her ability to be at the right place at the right time.
An excellent save from Grace O’Hanlon denied Australia a second shortly after as she slid to her left.
The Black Sticks drew an almighty save from Lynch from a penalty corner late in the third, with the 2019 world goalkeeper of the year diving full stretch to her right to deny New Zealand.
Australia held on to seal yet another tense victory to remain unbeaten.
Late inclusion keeps Hockeyroos flying high
Maddy Fitzpatrick was not even supposed to be playing at the Olympics.
After missing the Hockeyroos’ 16-player squad for the Games, she won a place on the reserves and then managed to become a player after the rules were changed during these Covid times.
On Wednesday night, after a scoreless opening half, Fitzpatrick scored the only goal in the Hockeyroos’ 1-0 win over Japan at Oi Stadium, which kept their unbeaten start to the Games alive.
From a penalty corner, the Hockeyroos went right, then left, cut out one and Fitzpatrick loaded up and thumped it into the bottom right of the goal.
Australia celebrated.
A beaming Fitzpatrick ran to the sidelines, grinning larger than Luna Park’s entrance, and immediately to her older sister, Savannah, who met her with a look and tenderness that only a family member can do.
It was only two months ago that Savannah held Maddy as only one of the sister-act made the Olympics squad, before the latter was later included.
“It was a really, really special moment when the team had all left the room and I was able to grab her, hug her and hold her,” Savannah recalled to News Corp the moment the sister pair found out they would be in Tokyo together.
“She’s done it and she’s officially an Olympian.”
Just days ago, Maddy was walking down a road from the south to the north pitch to study her opposition as the sun beamed down.
Hockey sticks in hand, bag over her shoulder and sweat dripping from her brow, she recalled the emotion surrounding her controversial non-selection.
“I had to get over my grief of not being selected very quickly considering we had the pro league games about a week later,” she said.
“I really wanted to fight for that reserve spot because, if I can’t be in the 16, at least I can go and watch my sister play and be ready for the team.
“I had to put it behind me really quickly for the New Zealand games and then I was lucky enough to be selected as a reserve.
“The rule change, it just gave me this whole new love for hockey and playing international hockey and being in the team. I think in the last year-and-a-half we’ve all taken for granted international hockey, so it was very exciting.”
In a tense match, where Kaitlin Nobbs was denied a first-half goal by a spectacular save from Sakiyo Asano, Fitzpatrick’s strike proved to be the difference as the world No.14 side challenged their fancied rivals much like the Japanese men did last Saturday.
Hockeyroos wary despite blistering Olympics start
Their journey to Japan was far from smooth sailing but the Hockeyroos’ dream start continued on Monday.
Following their 3-1 victory against Spain on Sunday, Katrina Powell’s side cruised to a 6-0 win over China on Monday afternoon.
But Brook Peris – the cousin of Australia’s first Indigenous gold medal-winner – knows medals are not won in the first week and it is about keeping your feet on the ground.
She was there when they were dumped out of the quarter-finals of the Rio Games in 2016.
“We’ve got to keep our feet on the ground and take it day by day,” Peris told News Corp.
The nerves of the opening day of action dissipating with every second spent on Oi Hockey Stadium.
“It’s always good to get the first game over and done with. I think we had 10 debutants at these Olympic Games – those nerves are going to happen,” Peris said,
“For the first game, we got it all out and we were very excited.
“We haven’t played hockey for a very long time and that was expected and today we settled our nerves and played how we normally play.”
Striker Emily Chalker continued her strong start to the Olympics, scoring the only two goals of the first half.
Peris gave Australia the perfect start to the second half when she knocked home their third.
An emotive Powell was fist pumping and gleefully clapping from the stands as Rosie Malone emphatically nailed the Hockeyroos’ fourth goal from a lovely cross midway through the final quarter.
When Steph Kershaw slapped in the Hockeyroos’ fifth, it was met with more applause. Ditto Grace Stewart after finishing their sixth.
With Powell in their corner – a two-time gold medallist – the Hockeyroos have come together.
“Her coaching style is very much what this group needs,” Peris said.
“She has the ability to make sure that everyone is peaking at the right time.
“She gets the best out of us all. She goes up to everyone in the group and says, ‘What do you need? How can I help you? How do I make sure you’re playing your best?’ That’s something that we’re grateful for, and that’s very special and I don’t think I’ve had that kind of mentor as a head coach before.”
For all the pain and suffering and angst within the set up over the past year, the Olympics is all about peaking at the right time and the Hockeyroos have made the perfect start.
They are now two from two, with their two biggest Pool B matches against Argentina and New Zealand to come in the final two games of the tournament.
A day earlier, the New Zealand Black Sticks beat the South Americans 3-0.
More Coverage
Aussie flag bearer’s US misconduct case sparks call for change
Australian sporting bodies have joined a call for foreign countries to openly share information they have obtained from any investigations into Aussie athletes accused of sexual misconduct.
How $75 can get you a shot at an Olympic gold medal
Emelia Surch is the best kept secret in Australian sport – and good judges rate her a genuine medal chance at the LA Games in four years time. And a radical funding plan could give the public a shot at sharing in her Olympic dream.