0
Australia
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25: Defending champions Netherlands made a grand start to the 10th Men’s Hockey World Cup with a 4-0 thrashing of New Zealand Sunday.
The Dutch, chasing their fourth World title here, were in the lead inside the first ten minutes with a goal from Marten Eikelboom, a field effort. This was enhanced minutes later, Bran Lomans shooting in from a short corner set-piece as they went for the breather with a comfortable lead.
The New Zealanders, however put the rampaging Dutch on hold for a good while and it was not before the 57th minute that they got their third goal of the game with Piet Hein Geeris being the scorer.
Netherlands, winners of the tournament in 1973, 90 and 98, completed the rout on the 65th minute when Teun de Nooijer sent in a sizzling shot off a penalty corner.
Spain, finalists of the Utretch World Cup in 1998 had it easy against Belgium and scored on either side of half-time for a 2-0 Pool A win. Their goals, one in field play and the other from a short corner were scored by Albert Sala and Xavier Ribas.
Tony Forellat, the Spanish coach said that the game was important for winning points.
Germany, among the favourites to win their first World Cup, walloped Argentina 5-2 in Pool A to justify their billing. With 16 minutes gone, the Germans were a goal behind, Santiago Capurro having scored for Argentina.
However the European champions bounced back and leveled through Christoph Bechmann. Three goals in eight minutes almost put the Latin Americans in place with TimoWess converting a short corner and Christian Wein and Bjorn Michel scoring in field play.
Argentina narrowed the scoreline through Almada Mario while Germany added the fifth late in the match, this one struck in by Matthias Witthaus.
German coach Benhart Peters was pleased with his forwards but said his team would need to get used to the “bumpy” pitch No. 2. Jorge Rute, the Argentine coach admitted the Germans were the better side and especially their defending of short corners made life difficult for them.
India, returning to the city of their only World Cup triumph back in 1975, made an unauspicous start to the tournament and were 0-2 down against Japan in a Group B clash but fought back to draw 2-2.
After Japan had taken the Indians by surprise scoring twice in the first half through captain Takahiko on the 10th and Kazuyuki Ozawa, it was left to the skilful Dhanraj Pillay to score from a short corner and pull one back at the start of the second half.
Then Deepak Sonikhia Thakur saved India blushes with a goal on the 27th to bring some life into his team’s ranks.
Hosts Malaysia did well in preventing Australia from scoring in the first half before yielding in the second to lose 0-3 against the 1986 champions.
The hosts were never expected to beat the Aussies.
But despite their defence holding strong in the first session, they could not stop Michael McCann from scoring on the 41st, a field goal and two more, one off a penalty corner and the other in field play, wrecked the Malaysian hopes of making a good start in the competition.
