Scotland’s European indoor hopes hang in the balance

Scotland’s European indoor promotion hopes hang in the balance after day one of the EuroHockey Indoor Nations Championship II in Portugal today.

To progress to the promotion pool, the Scots will need to defeat France by a decent margin of goals in tomorrow’s final pool match and hope that the result between England and Croatia works in their favour.

The opening pool match against England ended in a 2-2 draw after a tightly fought contest that both sides had chances to win.

Tom Carson broke the deadlock early in the second minute, shooting past Scotland goalkeeper Sean Hadfield from the left of the circle.

The Scottish defence did well to repel two penalty corner attempts from England mid-way through the first half, while chances for Scotland’s attackers were snuffed out quickly by their English adversaries.

Nevertheless, Olympian Stephen Dick levelled for the Scots immediately following the half-time interval, netting from close range to make it 1-1.

A goal from Dan Coultas twelve minutes later gave the national side the lead at 2-1, only for John Kinder to equalise for England three minutes from time.

In the second encounter of the day against Croatia, the Scots were always chasing the match after falling behind to a 4-1 deficit at half-time.

Two goals from Lucas Bachmann, added to strikes from Gregor Fjus and Mario Mucic gave the Croats the first half advantage. Dan Coultas was the Scottish scorer.

Bachmann completed his hat-trick shortly after the interval, finishing from a narrow angle, before Toni Premilovac made it 6-1 in the 24th minute.

Michael Ross got a goal back for Scotland from a penalty corner moments later, only for Bachmann to storm to the top of the goalscoring charts with his fourth goal of the battle to make it 7-2 in his team’s favour.

The Scots did rally through goals from captain Gavin Byers, Ross and Patrick Christie, but it was little too late as they fell to a 7-5 defeat at full-time.

Scotland’s final pool match against France will be shown live by EHF from 10.10 as well as crossovers.

Please visit the EuroHockey Indoor Nations Championship II website for comprehensive information

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