EuroHockey 2015: England men hit 10 past Russia
- Published
EuroHockey Championships |
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Venue: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London Dates: 21-30 August |
Coverage: All England, Scotland and Ireland matches live on BBC Red Button, BBC Sport website, tablets, mobiles and app, plus selected commentaries on Radio 5 live sports extra. |
England's men opened their EuroHockey campaign with an emphatic 10-1 victory over Russia at London's Olympic Park.
The 2009 champions, external struck three times in each opening quarter, David Condon recording a first-half hat-trick.
Seven other England players found the net, David Ames completing the scoring with the 10th with two minutes left.
The start of the tournament was delayed by 30 minutes when the main stadium building lost all power causing lights to go out.
Some fans were also frustrated having to queue outside the venue as ticket holders had to wait for entry for the problem to be resolved.
England next play on Sunday against world number two and top-ranked team the Netherlands, who beat Spain 2-0 in the day's other match.
Their final game in the round-robin group is against the Spaniards on Tuesday, with the top two teams advancing from Pool A to the semi-finals.
England, beaten in the semi-finals of this event by hosts Belgium two years ago, opened the scoring through captain Barry Middleton, who dived in to touch home from close range following trickery from Mark Gleghorne.
A sweeping move saw Sam Ward cross for Condon to deflect into the top corner and Condon added a reverse stick effort on the stroke of the first break.
Chris Griffiths steered into the bottom corner with a reverse stick shot, Iain Lewers fired in the fifth after intercepting and Condon secured his hat-trick with a tap-in, before Russia finally got on the scoresheet through Pavel Pletetskii.
In the third quarter Ward followed up to force the ball home, Gleghorne added a penalty corner and Nick Catlin poked in from close range for the ninth.
The final 15 minutes produced just the one goal, Ames notching his first for England.
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