The scoreboards at the Rotterdam Hockey Club worked overtime as Australia thumped Chile 12-0 and Korea hammered Mexico 11-0 in their respective pool matches as the Rabobank Junior World Cup hockey tournament for men commenced on Wednesday.
Australia, playing Chile for the first time, did not take any chances and were on target from the start. Leading 7-0 at half-time, the Aussies struck at regular intervals through Colin Hennessey (4), Thomas Cleghorn (2), Glenn Turner (2), Jonathan Charlesworth, Iain Davidson, Desmond Abbot and Kiel Brown.
Australia coach and Olympian Mark Hager, though, was not impressed. "We played well in the first-half, but rather loosely in the second session. But it was a good outing for us and just the sort of start we were looking for," said the former Aussie forward.
The Aussie team is without their key forward, Stephen Boyce, who is recovering after knee surgery.
"We might yet miss Stephen as the competition gets tougher. We also lost another key player in Fergus Kavanagh, who broke his hand a couple of days back. As far as our prospects in this tournament, our goal is to finish in the top three," he added.
On the Stadium pitch, Korea took time to settle down, but once they got into their flow, the Mexicans were mere spectators to the destruction.
Leading 3-0 at the break, the Koreans stepped up the pace on resumption and put on display their speed and co-ordination that brooked no response from Mexico.
But the tournament did not have the best of starts as a mix-up in shirt numbers considerably delayed the announcement of final results sheets of the opening two matches.
Chile, in particular, not only got a few shirt numbers wrong but also did not identify their captain. In fact, in their official team list handed over to the technical table, the captain was put down as goalkeeper.
The corrections were subsequently carried out after much discussion between the table and team officials.
Likewise, the Koreans provided more headaches to the organizers, who struggled to differentiate a Kim from Kwan and a Yong from Hong.
Consequently, the result sheets were held back pending corrections that took over an hour after conclusion of the match.
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