Charlesworth angry at video referrals

Australian coach Ric Charlesworth today said the video referral system had made his side’s life difficult with many wrong decisions against them during the 2-3 loss to England in their first match of the hockey World Cup here.

“The umpires made lots of decisions against us and the video referral decisions went against us. It happened in the Champions Trophy in Australia last year also. But it is the system here, what can we do,” he said at the post-match press conference. “Towards the close of the match our chance to have a penalty corner was overturned. I could not believe it. That was a penalty corner,” he added.

Charlesworth said his boys were to blame themselves for the defeat as they missed chances galore, including 12 penalty corners of which they converted only one.

“We missed at least 28 chances and how can win if you missed like that. We did not do well in penalty corner conversion. We are disappointed. Now our next match against India on Tuesday has become a must-win match,” he said. “But this is not the first time we are in such a situation and it is a long way to go in the tournament,” said Charlesworth who had coached India earlier. — PTI