The contest between Australia and South Africa looked like another
David vs. Goliath encounter, with the Kookaburas ranked at the top of
the FIH World Rankings and the Africans the lowest ranked team in this
Olympic competition.
(Yan Huckendubler)
It did not take long for Jamie Dwyer to be dangerous,
penetrating the circle and arriving alone in front of Erasmus Pieterse
in the South African goal, who managed the save but conceded a
penalty-corner. The South Africans survived the initial flurries of
Australian attacks and play became more balanced for a while. The
Kookaburas could not do much of their first two penalty-corners and the
next chance was at the other end for Marvin Harper, whose tentative shot
nearly surprised the Australian defense.
Australia earned a penalty-stroke in the 16th minute after a pinball
sequence in the South African circle, the ball hitting sticks, posts and
players. Jamie Dwyer cleanly slotted the ball out of reach of the
goal-keeper to open the score. The Australians then had a string of near
misses; they were unsuccessful on their next two penalty-corners,
Kieran Govers could not beat the goal-keeper one on one after receiving
the ball alone far behind the South African defenders and they were
denied a penalty-corner goal by a successful South African
video-referral.
It was once again Jamie Dwyer who finally unlocked the
situation, offering a splendid pass to Matthew Butturini left with an
easy tap-in for the second Australian goal. Although the South Africans
were clearly pushed back on the heels during most of the period, the
score was only 2-0 at half-time and the Australians were certainly
unhappy with their many wasted chances.
South Africa played well at the beginning of second period,
displaying some strong individual skills and swift combinations, but
Australia opened an insurmountable break in a few minutes with a couple
of penalty-corner goals, first by Christopher Ciriello then by Jamie
Dwyer.
Jamie Dwyer completed his hat-trick with ten minutes to
go in the match, scoring another penalty-stroke after been taken down
by Erasmus Pieterse in the circle. With this goal, Dwyer moved level
with Mark Hager as top Australian all-time goal scorer! South Africa ran
out of steam in the final stages of the match and could not deal any
more with wave after wave of Kookaburas attacks regularly outnumbering
their defense. Glenn Turner added a final goal and Australia comfortably
bagged the 3 points of the win.
