Dar Hockey Academy crossed the border from Belgium to Holland and the same evening, the team from Pakistan had the match against their hosts MOP’s A1 team with two former junior international, at Vught, near Eindhoven. MOP have been wonderful hosts on all the Dar HA’s yearly trips since 2010.
In the 11th minute, a jinking run by Adeel earned Dar HA the first but abortive penalty corner. Very next minute, MOP had a PC but a timely rush by Aamer Yaqoob thwarted the attempt. The epidemic of penalty corner wastage continued when the visitors failed to stop the push-in properly on their second PC. MOP counter attacked and a goal mouth cross couldn’t be trapped. Finally the ice was broken. Dar HA mid fielder Sikander sent a long defence splitting ball to Rizwan whose short pass was sent to cage by Waseem Akram. The Lahore based academy’s raids kept coming in waves. An Awais/Bilal Mahmood interchange ended with Awais shooting wide. Then Adeel missed a sitter. On their second PC, again the ball wasn’t stopped properly at the top of the circle but Salman, the captain for the match, swiftly moved into the dee and after side stepping a defender scored with a superb hit.
After being outplayed for about 10 minutes, the hosts regrouped and made some good manouvres. However, one minute before the half time, off an Adeel pass, Rizwan majestically ran into the circle and from the top unleashed an excellent shot to make it 3-0.
Awais fumbled with a good opportunity early in the second period. Thereafter, the match saw less attacking game. Awais tried to make amends with a good run which earned his side the third PC in the 11th minute. A fast and shot drill involving two strokes resulted in Bilal Mahmood netting his side’s fourth goal. Then both the sides wasted a penalty corner. In 19th minute, on Dar HA’s fifth PC, the 190 cm tall Asad sent a missile on goal’s top corner. It was 5-0 and their fourth penalty corner goal of the evening.
MOP trying to salvage some pride fought well in the last 15 minutes. They made fine moves, had the chances and one attempt was saved by the goal post. Finally, taking a cue from their visitors they managed to get on the score sheet via a penalty corner, in the 32nd minute.