It was sheer, cold-blooded murder—everything you would expect of a team of champions.
It is only a penalty shoot-out loss to Belgium at the Tokyo Olympics in the gold medal match last year that stops the Kookaburras being in the same conversation as the Aussie women’s cricket team as our greatest national teams going around right now.
They have everything you can want.
Ruthless, silky ability to find goals in the final third. Check.
Brutal intensity off the ball. Check. Even ahead 7-0 in the fourth quarter, the Aussie defense was screaming and scrambling like their lives depended on it. “They have really had each other’s back,” former Hockeyroos star Georgie Parker said on Channel 7.
A humble, classy Aussie spirit that conceals a killer-instinct. Check. Veteran Eddie Ockenden was selected to carry the Aussie flag at the Opening Ceremony for a reason.
Ockenden, at the age of 35, didn’t rule out the possibility of playing through to the 2026 Commonwealth Games — admitting the lure of competing in Victoria had real appeal.
For all these reasons and more, poor India didn’t stand a chance in Monday night’s Commonwealth Games final at the University of Birmingham.
It ended 7-0 and the score was a fair reflection of the Kookaburras’ dominance.
It was a fourth Commonwealth Games gold medal for Ockenden — and the Kookaburras kept their perfect record of winning every gold medal since hockey was introduced at the Commonwealth Games in 1998. They are the only team to win every gold they have competed in since that time .
The first half was a surgical carve-up that quickly turned into a bloodbath.
India simply had no clue how to stop the onslaught and it was 5-0 at the half time break.
Australia was denied an early goal when Daniel Beale stumbled on the ball as he was running in to tap it past the goal keeper.
It didn’t matter as gun finisher Blake Govers got Australia’s opening goal when he converted on Australia’s third penalty corner. It was 2-0 before quarter time as Nathan Ephraums finished off a sweet mid-field run to leave Australia in a dominant position.
When Jacob Anderson tapped in the third goal early in the second quarter, Channel 7’s Alister Nicholson said the Kookaburras were looking “lethal”.
When the fourth goal came he said: “This is just looking like a clinical side, used to playing in big matches, asserting itself.”
He said it was a “state of despair” for India in the second half.
The Kookaburras made the final on the back of an epic comeback win over England in the semi-final where controversy surrounded Australia’s winning goal.
On Monday morning (AEST) the Hockeyroos fell just short in the final where hosts England won gold in hockey for the first time ever.
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