Battling Blue Sticks lose to Gold Coast hosts Australia

A brave and battling Scotland men’s squad lost 6-1 to World number 1 ranked Australia at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. After a tough opening quarter, where Australia scored four goals, the Blue Sticks made a great effort against the talented top-ranked Aussies.

Battling Blue Sticks lose to Gold Coast hosts Australia
Photo by Team Scotland

Australia made a blistering start to the contest. Aran Zalewski opened the scoring through a near post deflection just after the push-back. Within the blink of an eye it went to 2-0 when Jacob Whetton slid the ball low into bottom right from a stealthy break forward.

Some courageous defending by Russell Anderson denied a third when he dived at full stretch to clear the ball off the line with goalkeeper Tommy Alexander beaten.

Still the Kookabura came in floods and their third goal arrived via a Daniel Beale quick pass into the D for Tom Wickham to tap in for 3-0. It was 4-0 through a brilliant penalty corner routine finished off by Dylan Wotherspoon at the right post.

The Scots dusted themselves down and the second quarter saw a courageous effort by the Blue Sticks to battle back into the match.

First Lee Morton smashed the ball into the D from the right but it was cleared in front of the goal by the defence.

It went to 5-0 to Australia when the ball was smashed home from top of the D by Flynn Ogilvie.

Then came a goal for Scotland. Some great work by Rob Harwood and Lee Morton in the build-up saw Harwood arrive in the D to send the all into the roof of the net.

Scotland were denied another goal as the half neared a close, from a penalty corner Andrew Charter made an exceptional triple save to deny Morton and Duncan Riddell.

Aaron Kleinschmidt’s lovely turn and finish made it 6-1 to the Aussie’s in the third quarter.

The final quarter ended goalless although a deflection from Harwood went close after a good break by Alan Forsyth.

In the end Australia took the win but Scotland took tremendous credit for the performance against top opposition in Gold Coast 2018.

 

Find out more about our Scotland men’s international squad HERE

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