World No.4 England remained unbeaten in the World Hockey league so far and became the first team to make it to the semifinals. But coach Bobby Crutchley was not very happy with the team, the way they missed their short corner conversions. “We needed to put our corners away, That would have relieved the pressure a little.”

But with 5 successful conversions out of 9 penalty corners in the league stage, England has almost double the average short corner conversion percentage. England’s conversion rate stood at 55 per cent to 27 per cent overall conversion rate in the pool stage. Today, they were successful in scoring one goal from three penalty corners a healthy average of over 50 per cent conversion rate.

The coach, however, was happy with the way his team played under the pressure. “Belgium are developing very fast and they are a really good side, so we are more than pleased with the result.”

Belgium chief coach Marc Lammers said: “It was a very tight game and England’s man-to-man marking of our players was good. They did not allow any leeway to our players. This was a good game. We played much better in the second half. The problem was that we missed too many chances. Our defence and midfield was okay, but the attackers really need to improve, there was less danger from them. We need to score goals.”

Ends