Robledo de la Barra puts Australia through, Croatia out
Nothing but promotion to elite group - that was the goal of Croatia. WAS. The great goaltending was to be seen in Australian crease today. After a furious beginning of the game Rolbedo de la Barra took his time and didn´t allow any other goal against his team. And helped Australia to go on.
| Game no. 27 bQF Thu 23/6/2011 15:00 Schedule and results | ||
|---|---|---|
Croatia |
3:7 |  Australia |
| (2:3, 1:3, 0:0, 0:1) | ||
| Beliĉ (4. Tomljenoviĉ) - Jacmenjak, Kopjatiĉ, Lovrenciĉ, Smerdelj - Srketiĉ, Sertiĉ Mario, Piragiĉ, Novak - Sertiĉ Marko, Cunko M., Grozaj, Cunko T. - Klobucar, Jakovac. | Robledo de la Barra (Muir) - Collins, Jones, Bourke, Dunstan - Fritchley, York, Casaceli, Nash - Cleland, McDowell, Gavin, Rozdarz - O`Sullivan, Brophy. | |
| Goals and assists: 4. Cunko M. (Cunko T.), 5. Lovrenciĉ, 14. Novak (Lovrenciĉ) - 3. Gavin (Rozdarz), 4. Casaceli, 7. Jones (Nash), 14. Rozdarz, 20. Dunstan (Bourke), 21. Gavin (Rozdarz), 37. Rozdarz (Gavin, Cleland) | ||
| Shots: 28:38
(8:9, 7:9, 8:11, 5:9).
Penalties: 5:4.
PP goals: 1:0.
SH goals: 0:0. Refferees: Kralj (SLO), Dreger (USA). Audience: 74. |
||
 Live coverage on onlajny.cz | ||
Game report
Those who missed the first four minutes must have been surprised! Croatia definitely was the favourite and nobody expeted it to be loosing to Australia from the very beginning.
Croatia was always one step behind. Mario Cunko answered the goal of Jordan Gavin. Marko Lovrencic that one of Micheal Casacelli. ANd the game was tied at two in the third minute.
After having two goals scored against from the first two shots, Belic was pulled out of the crease. The substitute Tomljenovic didn´t resist long enough and allowed the third goal almost immediately. Australia only outshot Croatia 9-8 in the first period, and was leading 3-2.
Although Mario Novak scored at the beginning of the second period, the game only remained tied for 22 seconds. Olivier Rozdarz scored the game winner. After Dean Dunstan´s goal Croatia called time out, which didn´t help. Half a minute later, they have another goal scored against them.
When Tomljenovic caught his second breath and Robledo de la Barra found self-confidence in the second half, the score seen to remain. Olivier Rozdraz supreside everybody, even himself, when scoring the seventh goal of Australia. Nobody expected his "shot" to find its way to the crease.
"The seventh goal was very happy. The game was quite tricky, but the goal put us in front. The match was really difficult. We lost to Croatia last year so we really focused on winning this match. We did quite well," said Rozdraz after the game.
Author: Hana Jeková
Game reactions
Alan Franjkovic (Croatia Head Coach):
It was bad performance from us, the players were too nervous. After having two goals scored against our play was terrible. We were not strong enough in the end to turn the match over.
Michael Flaherty (Australia Head Coach):
I am really happy about how the boys played today. We had a good start and we were able to keep the lead, which is the thing we need to do against good team like Croatia.
