There are also places for the winners of the Pan American Games, The Asian Games, The African Qualifying Tournament, The Oceania Cup, and perhaps crucially for Great Britain, the Unibet EuroHockey Championships 2015. Amjad Ali and Mohammed Tousiq even waved their middle finger to the crowd that resulted to the crowd that resulted in them getting suspended for the final against Germany.
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The Pakistan defence played very well but their unimaginative attack posed few problems until the last quarter when they were lifted by a goal 12 minutes from time.
Australia, finishing at the top of pool A, will now face Ireland, pool B’s fourth team, in a quarter-final. India were lucky to not go three behind in the third minute of the second quarter when a shot went blazing past the Indian goal.
A 2-1 win over Pakistan on Wednesday sets up a clash with Australia in Antwerp tomorrow (Friday) for a place in the final on Saturday against either India or hosts Belgium.
Pakistan coach Shannaz Sheikh was disappointed with his team’s performance, saying they were not up to par. We put all of our efforts into it but we were unlucky we didn’t score with our chances. Today’s match was imperative for Pakistan to stay in the tournament and meet all requirements for Olympics 2016.
Griffiths scored a brilliant goal to but Great Britain in the lead in the fourth minute of play.
He scored 348 goals and became the highest goal scorer. M Waqas came closest to grabbing an equaliser, but Great Britain shot-stopper George Pinner stood strong to deny the strike from the right and seal a crucial win for his country.
“Having said that they didn’t create a lot of chances and I felt we were the better side”. All the quarter-final matches will be held on Wednesday.
A 5th place finish would provide them the best possible chance of reaching Rio.
Britain really beat Pakistan in the first nine minutes. Goals from Matt Gohdes, Jamie Dwyer, Simon Orchard and Blake Govers moved the Kookaburras to within one victory of guaranteeing a place in both the end-of-year showpiece Hockey World League Final and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
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Earlier Pakistan beat Poland in their opening match by 2-1 and get a winning start in the tournament. Bartosz Zywiczka opened the account for Poland with a fierce strike.
