Perth: Australia won the Hockey Australia Men’s Challenge Cup, defeating us 2-1 in the final on Sunday. We played a pleasing hockey but lost the Cup in the last five minutes of play in which the Australians scored both their goals — in the 65th and 70th minutes.

After a barren first half, centre-forwards of both the teams, India’s Dhanraj Pillay and Australia’s Jaime Dwyer scored a goal each through indirect penalty corner conversion. It’s indeed rare occasion that the field goal experts help their teams’ cause in identical fashion — being alert in the set-piece drills. The score stood 1-1 in the 65th minute.

40 seconds before the hooter, when the match was played at a feverish pitch, in a desperate attempt, Dean Butler scooped the ball from near Australia’s 25 yardline to the edge of Indian circle. Defender Kanwalpreet Singh tried to stop the ball, but it hit his body and bounced on to the ground. Forward Nathan Eglington, who was lurking around, picked up the loose ball and passed it to Micahel McCann inside the circle. In a one-to-one situation, McCann outwitted our goalie Devesh Chauhan to post the winning goal

It hurts to lose a match this way, but I am not too worried. We defeated Pakistan on Saturday but I was not happy as my team did not play as expected. However, in today’s final, my team played a great game. The world class Australian defence was perforated quite often while our defence did not give in for large part of the game. The holiday crowd, which was bigger than Saturday’s, got their full money back.

This is an experimental tour and playing well is more important, though winning will always be a bonus.

After the match was over, I congratulated Barry Dancer, Australian coach. After accepting my gesture, he told me that his team was lucky to win today. “Your team played a great game today”, he said.

Sunday’s was our best match in the tournament so far. Rarely do we play such a wonderful game. We also played to the plan we charted it out. For most part of the game, we nearly outplayed the Australians. After we took lead in the 49th minute, we controlled the game for long periods.

Before the match, I had a doubt in my mind whether the team would recover in time for the final — after the exacting match we had against Pakistan on Friday. All cobwebs about their fitness were cleared today. They were fitter of the two sides. It’s a vindication of our fitness programmes, our main focus in the last two camps, the Maneser stint in particular.

From the beginning I had a gut feeling the Australian `A’ is the one to watch. We were the only team who beat them in this leg. On Sunday, they defeated Pakistan Again. Like their seniors, they also scored two goals in the last moment — in the 65th and 67th minutes — after trailing by an odd goal till then.

Australia ‘A’ amassed 14 goals, combined tally of India and Australia, in four matches. With five goals to his credit, Grant Schubert, emerged topscorer of the Perth leg. We now move to Sydney for the second and last leg of the Tri-Nation series.

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