England Sink Japan, avenging defeat from four years ago.
Dave Elwood’s side finished up its 2006 World Championships schedule with a decisive victory over Blue Division rivals Japan, on the North London Fields this morning.
Both teams elected to sing their respective national anthems in the absence of a public address system. Tom Gallon rescued the English effort with some nice early notes, and then confidence growing, he elected to sing over the top of what can only be described as an enthusiastic dirge, which should have earned him a spot on the 2008 squad at the very least.
The team got up at 6am the last two days to prepare for the early face-off slot of 9am, and the tactic seemed to pay dividends with Pete LeSueur, Matt Beadle and Phil Brauch all contributing to a 3-2 1st quarter lead. LeSueur’s finish was the pick of the early goals – dodging lefty from X, getting five yards above GLE before spinning back and shooting the ball righty, using himself as a screen. Japan would need England’s assistance to create their own offence, and it looked like Tom Wenham’s defence was going to oblige in the early running, picking up a string of penalties to keep the opposition in the game with two extra-man goals.
Once England settled down in the second quarter the penalties that Japan needed so badly started to dry up, and after Nsayuki Kadota squeezed off a nice high to high lefty overhand shot on the run to claw Japan back to 4 – 3, England would embark on a three goal run that effectively finished the contest. Paul Flowers stuffed a high bounce shot under the bar from 12 yards after a nice front-side skip from LeSueur. Seven minutes later LeSueur encored his earlier question mark dodge with unerring accuracy – apparently the repetition did Japanses keeper Takohiko Shinohara little good, the ball creeping in off the near post. Mark Reynolds then isolated his defender on the low right post, eventually ducking underneath him and finishing over Shinohara’s off-stick shoulder.
Japan couldn’t create in settled six-on-six as the England longsticks went about their business with aggressive efficiency, and any hope of a transition game was being snuffed out by Nathan Singleton and Sam Patterson, the former pursuing the ball all over the park, leaving a trail of (legally) abused Japanese players in his wake.
The teams exchanged goals for the next twenty minutes, Japan picking up goals off two precious face-off victories and then adding a reminder of how good they can be when allowed time and space, with an attackman isolating behind and feeding a middie sliding down the backside of the crease. Dispersed between these Japanese strikes were two goals from Phil Brauch, who really established his right to left split dodge today and seemed to enjoy the extra lift that the hard ground gave his bounce shot, and another classic Dave Bryant speed sweep, which Shinohara dipped on as it screamed past the top of his stick and into the top corner. AJ Beard would pad the England lead to 11 - 6 minutes later, running a ‘J’ cut and timing up a backdoor sneak with skipper Tom Caplin.
Japan would get on the scoreboard once more, a late penalty on Andy Linton allowing them to find some space inside, but England would have the last say, Singleton stripping a Japanese clearing midfielder and feeding Caplin, who had time and room to pick a spot from 10 yards. Fittingly, the last serious action of the day involved England keeper Ben McAllister, who tipped over a last second shot to round off a strong tournament.
The squad ran to their travelling support at the final whistle – as their coaches embraced on the sideline. It has been a long time since the squad and staff began the journey to Ontario, and the group looked visibly relieved to have made it through, 5th spot comfortably stowed in the locker for the next four years.
ATJ
