Field Hockey Canada > England tops Canada in final pool stage match at Junior World Cup

England tops Canada in final pool stage match at Junior World Cup

PHOTO: Canada’s Kabir Aula works to protect the ball from England players at the 2016 World Cup in India (By Yan Huckendubler)

December 12, 2016 | Shaheed Devji | fieldhockey.ca

Canada faced England Tuesday in Lucknow, India in both teams’ final pool stage match at the 2016 Junior World Cup.

After a strong performance against India on opening night and a back and a game against South Africa that saw them drop the decision after opening the scoring, the Canadians had two days without playing before their last pool match against England.

And there was a lot on the line.

For Canada – albeit slim – there was still a chance to move forward to the quarterfinal round. But a win by a large margin was needed for the Canadians to leapfrog at least two teams to end up in the top two.

For England, after India beat South Africa on Monday, a win or tie would guarantee a top-two finish in Pool D and a spot in the quarterfinals.

Beating England was a tall order for the Canadian Under-21 men, the youngest team at the tournament, and in the end was too much.

On the shoulders of a three goal performance of Edward Horler, and two more from Will Calnan, England captured the victory 6-0, moving onto the quarterfinals. While Canada will now play for 13th-16th place in the classification round, which gets going Wednesday in India (Tuesday night in Canada).

Both teams started the match cautiously, but England progressively took control of play and pushed Canada in defense. England scored on their first three penalty corners, the first of which came in the 10th minute from Calnan. Horler’s first came in the 15th minute, and he added his second in the 20th minute.. By the 23rd minute, Calnan scored again and England had a 4-0 lead, which made what was already tough, even tougher for Canada, which had only scored one goal to that point in the tournament.

England added two more goals in the second half.

Angus Grauer started in his first international match for Canada, while Iqwinder Gill came on in relief in the second half.

Canada will await the result of the final pool match of the tournament between Australia and Korea before the matches for the next round are confirmed.

Canada will face Korea (which finished in 4th in Pool A) in a crossover match in the classification round. The match will be played at 6:00pm local time on Wednesday, December 14 in India (4:30am Pacific /7:30am Eastern in Canada). Watch the game live here.