Japan drop the bomb on USA

JONATHAN COOK
in Dublin

IN a match of bitter irony for the Investec South Africa women’s hockey team, Japan came back from a 2-0 deficit to overwhelm the USA in the last 20 minutes and win the Champions Challenge final 3-2 in Dublin, Ireland Sunday evening.
In their Pool A match last Sunday, captain Marsha Marescia’s SA team had thrashed Japan 5-1.

Earlier Sunday, Pool A winners South Africa beat Pool B winners Ireland 2-1 in the playoff for fifth place with world goalscoring record holder Pietie Coetzee netting for the 225th time in her 227th Test match.

The superstar striker was the runaway winner of the tournament’s top goalscorer award, netting nine times in six games.
The experimental format at this tournament did away with the tried and tested method of stipulating that the top two teams at the end of the pool round would qualify automatically for the semi-finals. Instead, the International Hockey Federation (FIH) brought in an unpopular new rule that ensured all eight teams would be eligible for quarter-finals no matter how they had performed in the pool phase.

The result was that the teams finishing second-last (Japan) and last (USA) in Pool A reached the final. South Africa had somehow contrived to draw 5-5 with the USA in pool play after leading 4-2 in the second half.

As a team, SA were the tournament’s top goalscorers and created far more opportunities than their opponents.

FINAL PLACINGS
1 Japan
2 USA
3 Scotland
4 Spain
5 South Africa
6 Ireland
7 India
8 Azerbaijan