Hockey World Cup: Battling Wales beaten 4-2 by hosts India
- Published
Wales 'significantly better' against India
Wales produced their best display of the men's Hockey World Cup so far as they narrowly lost to hosts India in their final pool game.
Two quick goals by Wales brought them level at 2-2 going into the final quarter.
But Olympic bronze medallists India won 4-2 in the end to condemn Wales to their third consecutive defeat and bottom place in pool D.
The result confirmed group winners England as quarter-finalists.
While their nearest neighbours progressed to the knockout stages without conceding a goal, Wales will play two more games with a ninth-place finish their target.
India must now beat New Zealand in a play-off to reach the quarter-finals while Spain and Malaysia will meet with with the same aim.
Throughout the tournament the mainly part-time Wales players had talked about "throwing some punches" against the world's top teams - and the first quarter was their most impressive start to a game so far.
India still had the better changes, but the World Cup debutants were looking much more comfortable at this level and limited India to just three shots on goal in the first 20 minutes.
But the deadlock was finally broken soon after.
Wales initially defended a penalty corner but were helpless to stop Shamsher Singh bursting back into the circle and firing past the left glove of Toby Reynolds-Cotterill. The impressive atmosphere generated by the 15,000 home fans went up another level.
After two heavy defeats in pool D so far, Wales were looking to be more competitive. James Carson had a great chance to equalise but mis-connected with his shot and a golden opportunity went wide.
Early in the second half as Wales won their first penalty corner of the match. Gareth Furlong stepped up but flicked the ball inches wide.
Moments later India were 2-0 up thanks to a brilliant first-time finish from Akashdeep Singh after a smart one-two cut through the Welsh defence.
India were up to 83% possession and looked to kill off the game. A seven-goal win could have seen them leapfrog England as pool winners.
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But Wales were no pushovers and when they won their second penalty corner, Furlong made no mistake this time around and his expert low flick into the Indian goal reduced the deficit to one.
Two minutes later Wales were in dreamland as another penalty corner effort from Furlong was initially saved, before the ball was played out to Jacob Draper to lift the ball in for the equaliser.
The goals were the first this Indian side had conceded all tournament.
It set up a thrilling final quarter but it was India who rose to the challenge. Reynolds-Cotterill was powerless to keep out Akashdeep Singh's world class reverse stick strike and India led once again.
Still Wales refused to give up. They asked India questions right to the end and brought off keeper Reynolds-Cotterill in favour of an extra outfield player in search for what have been an historic equaliser and their first point at this level.
But that opened the door for India who took advantage of Wales' open goal to add a fourth with seconds to go.
There were fireworks at the finish around the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, but the feeling for the hosts would have been as much relief as celebration.
Wales head coach Danny Newcombe:
"The key frustration for me is that if we'd played like in all three [pool matches], one of them could've gone our way. The key learning for our next tournament is we can't wait two games to turn up. It's not acceptable.
"The other key thing is we take the momentum from today and we go and turn that into two results in the next stage. For us it's all about finishing ninth, which for us in our first World Cup would be a huge achievement.
Gareth Furlong, Wales goalscorer:
"We were a little bit disappointed after the first two games that we probably hadn't given the best account of ourselves. The intent was there to go out and match them for as long as possible, which I think we did. Obviously a little bit disappointed with the final result but the performance was significantly better than the previous two games."