Tassie after gold
TASMANIA’S under-21 men’s hockey side will go in as heavy favourites when they play for a spot in the national final today.
The same group famously took bronze at under-16 level in 2013 and silver as under-18s in 2015, and assistant coach Ben Read says the team is excited to be one win from the big dance.
“On the line is a shot at the gold medal, so the stakes are high and there is a great belief within this group. We are enjoying every second of it and the boys are really looking forward to what is a massive opportunity.”
TASMANIA’S under-21 men’s hockey side will play for a spot in the national final today and enters the match as the heavy favourite.
The same age group famously took bronze at U16 level in 2013 and silver at U18 level in 2015 and assistant coach Ben Read says the team are excited to be one win from the big dance.
“On the line is a shot at the gold medal, so the stakes are high and there is a great belief within this group.
“We are enjoying every second of it and the boys are really looking forward to what is a massive opportunity.”
Read said the side’s confi- dent style had allowed it to not let the bigger states dictate play.
“We’ve have 18 fantastic contributors across the four games, with guys like Sam McCulloch, Linden McCarthy, Hayden Beltz and Dan Harper leading the way,” Read said.
“Our penalty corners have been a great avenue to goal where I believe we’ve scored the most corners of any team in the tournament so far with five.”
Tasmania stormed into today’s semi-final against the ACT at noon after a stunning come-from-behind victory in its quarter-final against New South Wales.
Trailing 3-1 with six minutes left, Tasmania stormed home to take the match to extra-time thanks to two penalty-corner goals to Benji Austin.
Tasmania substituted goalkeeper Harper for Mitchell Nicholson in the penalty shootout and won 2-1 thanks to goals from Hayden Beltz and Jack Welch.
“Coming from behind to beat a team of the calibre of NSW gives us enormous confidence, however, we refuse to get ahead of ourselves.
“ACT are a quality outfit and we know that we’ll have to be absolutely on top of our game if we are to beat them.”
The side will aim to become the state’s first national hockey champion since the Tassie Tigers won the Australian Hockey League in 2014.
Tasmania’s U21 girls’ side finished the round-robin matches ranked fourth in Pool A and faces the ACT at 2.30pm for a spot in the fifth-placed classification match.
Maddison Curtis leads the Tasmanian goal-scorers with two goals, while Maddy Hinton and Eliza Westland have also found the net.