World champions Australia routed 2008 Olympic silver medallists Spain 5-0 in men’s Olympic field hockey on Wednesday. Opening up Spain’s defence with frequent interchanges, Australia posted their second straight win to stay on top of Pool A with six points. The Netherlands also took their points tally to six from two outings in Pool B after posting a 3-1 victory over Belgium in a tough contest where the last goal for the Dutch came in the final minute when their opponents were pressing for an equaliser and were playing without a goalkeeper.
Australia opened the scoring in the ninth minute through Russell Ford who deflected in a ball from Mark Knowles. Matthew Butturini was on target five minutes later after creating space. Simon Orchard’s field goal in the 29th minute gave Australia a 3-0 lead at half-time.
Glenn Turner collected a long pass on top of the circle to slam past the goalkeeper in the 40th minute and Edward Ockenden rounded off the scoring with a penalty corner conversion in the 69th minute.
Ockenden, Australia’s captain, said the team had played better than in their 6-0 win over South Africa on Monday.
“The free-flowing play is what we like to do, but it doesn’t always work out like that,” said Ockenden. Spain, who now have just one point from two matches, saw seasoned player Pol Amat going off the pitch after colliding with an Australian defender. Amat’s injury came after Spain’s star striker, Santi Freixa, suffered a fracture in the last match against Pakistan. Freixa has been ruled out of the tournament and replaced on the Spanish team roster. “We’ll see what happens to Pol. Without him and Santi it might get tougher for us,” said Spanish goalkeeper Francisco Cortes. Mink van der Weerden converted two penalty corners for the Netherlands against Belgium. After a goalless first half, he score seven minutes into the second session, but Belgium equalise with a penalty corner goal of their own by Jerome Dekeyser in the 58th minute.
