Australia retained the men’s hockey World Cup title by outplaying Olympic silver medallist The Netherlands 6-1 in the final at the Kyocera Stadium here on Sunday.
Chris Ciriello’s three penalty corner conversions was the feature of the contest that saw the Kookaburras retain the trophy it had won in New Delhi in 2010. The successive title wins was a present the Australian team had promised to its coach Ric Charlesworth, who had won it as a player in 1986 and as a coach four years ago.
The Netherlands opened the scoring in the 14th minute through Jeroen Hartzberger but the Australians came back strongly to slam six goals to make it the most one-sided World Cup final ever.
Australia, which equalised in the 19th minute through Cirello’s first penalty corner conversion, gained ascendancy with a 24th minute field goal through Kieran Govers’s reverse hit from top of the circle to go into halftime with a 2-1 lead.
Glenn Turner beat goalkeeper Jaap Stockmann with a flick from close three minutes into the second half before Cirielo scored with successive penalty corners in the 46th and 53rd minutes.
Jamie Dwyer rounded off the scoring in the 64th minute when he picked up a through ball on the left flank and darted into the circle to shoot home.
Bronze for Argentina
Earlier, Argentina took the bronze medal, defeating England 2-0, while Belgium defeated Germany 4-2 to take fifth place.
New Zealand beat Spain 4-1 in a penalty shoot-out to take seventh place after the regulation time ended 1-1.
The results:
Final: Australia 6 (Ciriello 20, 47, 53; Govers 24; Turner 37; Dwyer 64) bt The Netherlands 1 (Hertzberger 14).
Third place: Argentina 2 (Paredes 55, 56) bt England 0.
Fifth place: Belgium 4 (Boon 25, Cosyns 40, van Aubel 59, Dockler 65) bt Germany 2 (Zeller 18, Fuchs 56).
Seventh place: Spain 1 (Lleonart 54) drew with New Zealand 1 (Russell 30). New Zealand 4-1 in shoot-out.