HOCKEY: England's barren run continues

HOCKEY

Australia 4

England 0

Australia continued their dominance of the six-match Test series when they achieved their third victory in Adelaide yesterday, while England's goal famine from their front-line strikers continued, writes Bill Colwill.

In a first half totally dominated by Australia, it took them only nine minutes to go into the lead; the captain, Mark Hager, scoring in typical style as he dived behind the England defence to deflect the ball past David Luckes, who had another useful game in goal.

Three minutes later, Max Diamond, winning his first full cap, put them further ahead at a penalty corner. On 20 minutes, another of their Under- 21 players, Matthew Smith, converted a right-wing cross from Paul Lewis, who then scored the fourth three minutes later.

Harsh words from the England coach, David Whitaker, at the interval brought an improved but barren second-half display. Rob Thompson and Don Williams both went wide when well placed.

Chris Mayer brought a great save out of the Australian goalkeeper, Lachlan Dreher, who also made useful penalty-corner saves from Julian Halls and Bobby Crutchley. England were then sadly unable to make a penalty corner count in their favour.

ENGLAND: D Luckes (East Grinstead); J Halls (Old Loughtonians), P McGuire (Teddington); A Humphrey ( Hull), Soma Singh (capt, Southgate), M Sutton (Bournville); C Mayer (Cannock), Kalbir Takher (Cannock ), D Williams (Havant), J Lee (East Grinstead), R Davis (Polo Barcelona). Substitutes used: B Crutchley (Hounslow), R Thompson (Hounslow), J Shaw (Southgate), B Sharpe (Cannock).

AUSTRALIA: L Dreher; M York, K Wark; D Sproule, M Diamond, B Garrard; L Bodimeade, J Stacy, S Davies, P Lewis, D Duff. Substitutes used: M Smith, L Elmer.