Hockey: Pearn pivots England to victory over Malaysia

England came good to beat Malaysia 2-0 in their third and decisive game at Lilleshall National Sports Centre yesterday, after two disappointing 1-1 draws earlier in the series.

Yesterday's game belonged to Mark Pearn, playing in his new inside-forward role, who opened the scoring in the fifth minute. After receiving a short ball just inside the circle from Jimmy Wallis and finding his route to goal blocked, the Reading forward pulled the ball back and pivoted to hit into into the top of the net for his 50th international goal.

It was Pearn who, 19 minutes later, sent Craig Parnham on a 50-yard run to interchange passes with Wallis before Parnham's goalward shot was helped on its way by Wallis for England's second.

The England coach, Mike Hamilton, was well satisfied with the weekend's performance. "This was an exciting final match to win the series," said Hamilton, who will use this series to whittle down his player pool to the 18 who will play in the Champions' Challenge in South Africa in July and the priority tournament, the European Nations Cup, two months later. Twenty-seven players have been called up for the recent games against Belgium and Malaysia. England play Ireland next in a three-Test series at Cannock at the end of the month.

"England performed well throughout large parts of the game and demonstrated that their core skills have improved significantly and are above the level displayed by Malaysia," Hamilton said. "Pearn's goal was probably one of the best of his career."

At a high-class renewal of the RAF Careers finals at Old Loughtonians over the weekend, Kingston Grammar School beat Kent College 5-3 to take the Under-14 final, in which a brilliant individual goal by Kingston's Edward Kaznowski in the opening minutes paved the way to victory.