from the Canadian Hockey website
www.fieldhockey.caMarch 24, 2006
Canada vs. Trinidad & Tobago : 2-0 (half-time: 2-0)
11’ 1-0 CAN, Mark Pearson, fg
12’ 2-0 CAN, Peter Short, fg
Canada played Trinidad & Tobago for the 9th-10th place with a depleted roster: Robin D’Abreo and Rob Short were out, Connor Grimes could only play for a couple minutes because of back spasms and Anthony Wright had to play with a mask to protect his face still badly bruised from the hit in the face suffered against England.
Trinidad & Tobago relied on a solid defense and fast counter-attacks led by Kwan Brown, who was as usual omnipresent organizing the Trinidadian game in defense and midfield.
Canada had control of the ball at the beginning of the game. On good work along the back line by Paul Wettlaufer, Mark Pearson recuperated the ball in front of the goal to score the first goal. Shortly after, Peter Short penetrates the circle on the left and scored a second goal with a superb reversed stick shot.
With two goals in two minutes, the crowd was expected a high scoring affair (as the opening act for the much anticipated semi-final between Australia and Malaysia), but the game settled. Canada had most of the possession but didn’t seem to want to take much risk and often temporized the game instead of pushing forward.
Neither team had a real opportunity for the remainder of the period (2-0 at the break).
With the appearance of the sun, Trinidad & Tobago suddenly pushed up the pace, had three successive spectacular shots on goal and earned a series of penalty corners. The Canadian were struggling to extricate themselves out of their defensive position and the crowd was now supporting the effort of the Trinidadian to come back in the game.
The players from Trinidad & Tobago were always a split second faster on the balls, and the Canadians had trouble keeping the ball when they earned a possession. They were only dangerous by Peter Short, the most active of the Canadian forwards today.
Canada finished the match short one player (yellow card for Scott Sandison), but Trinidad & Tobago could not score a goal to show for their clear dominance of the second period.
“We played this game with only 12 players and it is our third game in four days,” said Gene Muller, Coach of the Canadian Team, “so you are always caught between wanting to say that the guys did well because of the difficult circumstances and being critical of some of the aspects of our play. We’ll have time to look more critically prior to the Qualifier in China; today, I wanted to take the team positively thought the game”.
