PC plenty leads to fifth quarter

The planners may not have expected, but the match between Australia and Canada saw a whopping another quarter of time spent on penalty corner preparation.

As per the rules in force, 40 seconds are allowed for preparation after award of each penalty corner

Today the Australians have got 19 of them, which works out to 760 sec (about 13 minutes).

And the Australians in all struck six goals (3 field and 3 PC goals), which again led to celebration time of 240 Secs. Meaning, exactly 15 minutes were spent in addition to normal time.

If time consumed is any barometer, today’s hockey was played for 5-quarters time.

Normally speaking, a plentiful should reflect in wealth, but for the Australians here it turned out be a kind of embarrassment. Mark Knowles’ team today met Canada in their last pool match, and was quick to amass goals, all four in the first quarter despite a goal being disallowed on referral.

For those statistically minded, it was third occasion a goal after celebration was disallowed for the Kangroos

Today, what seemed a goal machine rolling came to an end, as next two quarters saw no goals, as Carter, the Canadian goalie, who was rightly adjudged the Man of the Match, would not budge.

Australian forwards, once failed with field attempts ab initio from second quarters, were successful in manufacturing penalty corners. But they could not convert into goals.

A record of sort was created today not in converting penalty corners, but wasting.

Australia in all could convert only twice out of 17 penalty corners they got, and the last one conversion came out of the 18th penalty corners.

Australia here is without its PC specialist Chiris Criello, who was rested after India-Australia series.

After Australia secured a safe 4-0 lead at the end of first quarter, it got two more goals