Singapore women’s hockey juniors beat Hong Kong (10 -0 ) in a must-win head to head match to move them into the Final of the 4th Women’s Junior AHF Cup at King’s Park Hockey Stadium on Tuesday Aug 5 2014.
This was a crucial match for Hong Kong and Singapore as the two top teams of this 3-team “Qualifier” competition gain a place in the 7th Women’s Junior AHF Cup 2015 to join the six teams that are already pre-qualified—China, Japan, South Korea, India, Malaysia and Thailand.
Although narrowly losing to Chinese Taipei in their initial Grid match Singapore played superbly well to beat Hong Kong and set up a second meeting with Chinese Taipei in the 1, 2 Playoff.
Earlier in the tournament, Chinese Taipei eased into the final of the 4th Women’s Junior AHF Cup with two straight wins over Singapore and Hong Kong.
In their first match of the tournament Chinese Taipei beat Singapore 2-1 on Saturday Aug 2 and followed this up with a narrow 1-0 victory over Hong Kong in their second Grid match on Sunday Aug 3.
Chinese Taipei started strongly in their first match on Saturday Aug 2 against Singapore scoring in the 8th and 22nd minutes of the match. Singapore hit back and pressed hard in the second half, but Chinese Taipei held out until the last minute of the match when Singapore scored with a well hit shot from the edge of the circle reducing the deficit to 2-1.
In their game against Hong Kong on Sunday Aug 3, Chinese Taipei did not play so well, making many errors in stopping, passing and controlling the ball. Hong Kong put up a strong performance outplaying the visitors in nearly all departments of the game keeping good shape throughout the match, passing and penetrating well into the Chinese Taipei half, but were off target with their goal attempts. Chinese Taipei played better towards the end of the game and scored the single goal of the match with 13 minutes left on the clock.
After this initial match Hong Kong Coach Mark Kake was please with the way the team had performed, but was cautious on future predictions.
“We played well, but we are still not clinical enough in front of goal, we should have been 2 or 3 goals up. I thought we did enough to get at least a draw if not a win,” said Kake to the Epoch Times.
“It was a confidence boost, but I still want to see if they can go up to the next level and let’s see how they perform the next game. I don’t want it to be a one game wonder.
“It is a must win match against Singapore. It is going to be tough, but the girls have got to get up for it to reach the final,” Kake concluded.
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