Scotland men lose semi-final to Ukraine in Vienna

Scotland men 0-1 Ukraine men

Scotland men lost their EuroHockey Qualifier semi-final 1-0 to Ukraine in Vienna. They now play for bronze tomorrow.

The Scots started well and commanded good possession of the ball in the early stages, with the contest largely played around the Ukraine circle.

The Ukrainians did a good job of closing down spaces and restricting opportunities though Andy McConnell tested the keeper with a solid strike from the top circle.

Then Struan Walker struck the right post from a penalty corner effort and the ball squirmed across the goal line and clear.

In the second half the Ukrainians began to play back into the contest and late in the third quarter, Ukraine took the lead. Oleksandr Solomianyi struck home to make it 1-0.

Scotland went all guns blazing for the final quarter and Jamie Golden came close with a drag flick that narrowly went over the bar, but an equalise evaded them and Ukraine took the victory.

Head Coach Jonny Caren said, “Today is a difficult one to take. We asserted our dominance early in our press and won a lot of ball through it, but failed to capitalise both through our open play chances and through our PCA’s.

“Ukraine had to resort to a lot of aerial play and once we identified the solution to that, we started to threaten their goal again.

“It’s an extremely hard lesson to learn but when we don’t convert our chances, and we had many of them today, through circle entries and penalty corners, the only stat that really matters in sport, is the score at the end of the game.

“The result really hurts right now, for us all, but we have to regroup, and finish the tournament strong tomorrow.”

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