The India A women’s team was defeated 7-0 by New South Wales (NSW) in a one-sided contest at the 2017 Women’s Australian Hockey League.
In its second match of the competition, India A failed to even put up a fight against a strong NSW side. NSW took a 3-0 lead in the first quarter of the match itself to put India on the back-foot.
Read: India A women lose 3-1 to Victoria
Field goals by Emily Smith (second minute), Courtney Schonell (sixth minute) and Jaime Hemmingway (12th minute) gave NSW an early edge over the visitor. Jessica Watterson added another goal to NSW’s tally in the 18th minute, taking its overall lead to 4-0 in the second quarter.
Read: India A thrashes Western Australia
India, however, seemed to recover from the early setback as it put up a controlled defence in the following minutes, which prevented NSW forwards from making easy forays into the visitors’ circle. The change in defence-approach paid off as India kept NSW from scoring goals in the remaining minutes of the second and third quarters.
Strong defence
On the other hand, breaking the NSW defence was a tough task for Preeti Dubey & Co. and repeated attempts by the Indian forwards to make successful circle penetrations were mired by a well-structured defence. In the final 15 minutes, NSW increased the intensity of its attack. A major error in the circle saw India give away a penalty stroke in the 46th minute, which was successfully converted by Kaitlin Nobbs.
Another penalty stroke given away in the 48th minute saw NSW take its total number of goals to six with Emily Smith converting it. But India had to face more agony as Abigail Wilson netted another field goal in the 52nd minute to make it 7-0.
India A will play South Australia in its next Pool B encounter on Monday.
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