Germany Coach Markus Weise felt good about the perfect start to the tournament. “It’s a good start for us for the tournament. The team was lucky to have scored three goals in just five minutes in the second half of the match. The defence played very good but somehow we gave away too many corners and I think if New Zealand would have been successful in converting those corners then the score card would have showed a different picture,”

The Hero Man of the Match winner and one of the goal scorers, Tobias Hauke, said: “We didn’t know how good we were going to be today. This is the first time this year we have had a chance to play together.” The Germans were playing their first match after the winter indoor training sessions.

“We can play better, our defence must improve because we know that we have some tough matches coming up,” Hauke added. German coach Markus Weise concurred: “This was a good start but we still want to improve in this tournament.”

New Zealand team player Alex Shaw summed up the team’s feelings: “We were able to create good chances but we failed to use them. Days like this are hard. Germany took all their chances and we didn’t. We knew it was going to be tough, but they played very well. We need to regroup and talk about what happened, but I think that we will come out tomorrow determined to hold the ball more, get into the circle and take our chances.” So beware India!

ends