World champion Australia beat Olympic champion Argentina 2-1 to win the battle of champions and retain the title in the Hockey World League Final at the Kalinga Stadium here on Sunday.
Earlier, India beat Germany by a similar margin and salvaged some pride by claiming its second successive bronze medal.
Having started off slowly in the tournament, the Aussies fired on all cylinders to strangle Argentina. A brilliant hit in from Lucas Vila saw Agustin Bugallo slot the ball into the net less than a minute after Australia went ahead on the 17th minute through Jeremy Hayward but that was to be its only consolation.
Even though the Argentines had more shots at the goal, the difference between the two sides was in the execution of penalty corners. Gonzalo Peillat was unable to find a way past Tyler Lovell as Argentina wasted four PCs while Australia scored off both the chances it got.
Earlier, Germany was playing its second high-intensity game in as many days, with less than 20 hours in-between, after a draining semifinal against Australia. It had just 11 players available, its second goalkeeper Mark Appel playing as a centre-forward for the first time ever in his career – and he scored the team’s lone goal.
Stand-in captain Mats Grambusch took to the field despite suffering from fever, same as the other six rendered out of action. And yet, it had as much possession as India, managed 13 shots at the goal against India’s 12, earned seven penalty corners and kept running circles around the host.
It looked like India and not Germany was short of legs. The latter had a clear plan and stuck to it. The defensive zoning worked perfectly. The players knew a ball would always travel faster than a player and so used minimum but accurate passes, ran less but with more direction and yet were precise and quick enough with their overlapping to always have someone to receive the passes.
It was all level in the first two quarters. India fashioned a series of attacks but they all fizzled out against a stout German defence. Gurjant Singh’s shot in the 12th minute went straight to goalkeeper Tobias Walter. As did shots from S.V. Sunil and Akashdeep Singh. Mandeep Singh was nowhere to be seen.
Sunil managed to finally break the deadlock in the 21st minute, shooting in a rebound after Walter padded off Akashdeep’s shot, but for a team fresh off a rest day, that was little to be relieved.
The second saw the Germans pegged back, as expected, but they continued their dogged defence as India failed to find a way past. A long pass from Grambusch in the 36th minute, from outside the dotted circle on the right, found Appel unmarked at the far post who just swung his stick and scored.
India earned its first PC in the 41st minute and then got three more, finally scoring off the last to go ahead. There even was a miscommunication during one where no one knew who would inject the ball. It kept attacking against a team running on fumes but there was no way Germany was going to go down without a fight. And it didn’t.
India might have won the game but it was Germany that walked off to the loudest applause from the crowd.
The results:Final: Australia 2 (Jeremy Hayward 17, Blake Govers 58) bt Argentina 1 (Agustin Bugallo 18). Bronze medal match: India 2 (S.V. Sunil 21, Harmanpreet Singh 54) bt Germany 1 (Mark Appel 36).
