Australia’s hockey males have suffered World Cup heartbreak, the Kookaburras succumbing to a killer purpose scored simply six seconds from the top of their semi-final by never-say-die previous rivals Germany.
The Commonwealth champs have been main 3-2 with lower than three minutes left to play in an exhilarating last-four encounter within the Indian metropolis of Bhubaneswar on Friday, and seemed poised to repeat their Olympic semi-final victory over the Germans in Tokyo.
However Germany equalized with only one minute 42 seconds left on the clock as Gonzalo Peillat accomplished his penalty-corner hat-trick after which snatched a totally deserved 4-Three victory by participant of the match Niklas Wellen simply when it seemed as if the ultimate spot could be determined in a shoot-out.
However Australia may don’t have any complaints at lacking out in a second successive World Cup semi-final although they led for a lot of the match.
They’d simply been decreased to 10 males within the sport’s remaining seconds with Tom Craig being despatched off for a inexperienced card offense amid some determined scrambling in defence, and that will have made the distinction as Wellen was capable of latch on to Peillat’s cross with the clock studying 59 minutes 54 seconds.
Germany had largely dominated possession and created the lion’s share of probabilities towards the world No.1 Kookaburras however have been nonetheless 2-Zero down by an 11th minute penalty nook from the event’s main scorer Jeremy Hayward and a counter-attack end from Nathan Ephraums simply earlier than halftime.
It was Hayward’s 99th purpose for Australia in his 199th look and he prolonged his tournament-leading tally to eight.
However the Germans, who had remarkably pulled again one other two-goal deficit within the dying minutes towards England within the quarter-final, leveled with two penalty nook strikes from Peillat within the third and fourth quarters.
Blake Govers then produced an excellent excessive drag flick to present Australia the late lead – his 127th purpose for his nation – nevertheless it solely pressured the Germans to take off their goalkeeper in a determined and profitable late comeback surge.
Germany will on Sunday meet the winners of the second semi, a repeat of the 2018 World Cup remaining between champions Belgium and the Netherlands.
