Hockey: Opening win for Japanese

England 2 Japan 3

England's young inexperienced team, missing their senior players in Australia for the forthcoming Champions Trophy, lost 3-2 to Japan but were not disgraced last night at Canterbury.

They held out until the 28th minute when Japan opened the scoring. The right winger Sakae Morimoto cut into the circle to unleash a reverse stick shot into the roof of the net.

England's fightback was engineered by Kerry Moore, who put them on terms eight minutes after the break with a powerful penalty corner shot. Poor England defensive work let Morimoto score her second goal in the 52nd minute, and Sachimi Iwao made it 3-1 five minutes later. Lisa Wooding soon pulled a goal back for England at a penalty stroke.

The teams meet again at Chelmsford tonight.