After getting our first points of the tournament against Northern Territory yesterday there was a good vibe going into our match against Victoria.
The Vics have a solid team with Australian squad players such as Georgia Nanscawen, Kary Chau and Claire Messent alongside Hockeyroos goalkeeper Rachel Lynch in their team but we believed if we played our best hockey we could match them.
The Vics slick ball movement and the hot conditions put us on the back foot early with our defence under a bit of pressure early but we stood strong and weathered the quick moving Victorian midfield and forward line.
Once we got our hands on the ball we found ourselves giving away possession and not being able to play fluent hockey with the Victorians showing us up possession wise.
As the half progressed we managed to penetrate into our attacking 50 earning a couple of penalty corners and goal scoring opportunities however the Victorians urgency and aggressiveness in defence meant our limited attacking opportunities were broken down.
Despite not playing our best hockey we were right in the match but it was the Vics who took the lead after scoring 10 minutes before half time.
After re-grouping at half time, we started the second half well and were very close to levelling the scores in the first 5 minutes. Despite our good start however it was Victoria who showed us how to put the ball in the back of the net and took a two goal advantage early in the second half.
After the Vics second goal they got a roll on and our poor basics were really letting us down. The tempo of the game was increased further as a couple of yellow cards left us with 9 players on the park for a 10 minute period.
Victoria capitalised and took advantage of the situation and made the eight field players we had on the pitch cover a lot of ground. They manoeuvred the ball swiftly from their midfield to their forward line to fluently add numbers to the scoreboard.
The second half was really disappointing and our basics and a couple of poor decisions let us down and cost us dearly with Victoria scoring six second half goals to run away with a 7-0 win.
We now have a rest day tomorrow which we will use to recover after playing in hot temperatures the last few days as well as look at the issues to come out of the Victorian game.
Our final round robin matches are against South Australia and ACT and will again be tough contests. As we move to the crunch time of the tournament we need to be able to string together some good hockey for the important classification rounds at the end of next week.
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