Hungary prevents major upset at the very end
Team Hungary scored three late goals to hold off battling Team South Africa. The underdogs matched their opponent for long periods of the game, but in the end came out empty-handed.
| Game no. 31 • bQF • Thu 23/6/2011 • 19:00 • Schedule and results | ||
|---|---|---|
Hungary |
4:2 |  Rep. of South Africa |
| (0:1, 0:0, 1:0, 3:1) | ||
| Balizs - Lencses, Revak, Orban, Bontovics, Kordisz - Kiss A., Rafaj, Szappanos, Feil, Fekecs, Pilcsik, Dancsfalvi | Bock - Marais, Birrell, Asworth, Watson, Magmoed - Miller, Du Plessis, Valadas, Engelbrecht, Matthews, Jevons, Van Eeckhoven, Lyon, Jones | |
| Goals and assists: 29. Bontovics (Szappanos), 45. Revak (Borbas), 45. Lencses (Borbas, Revak), 47. Orban (Bontovics) - 9. Valadas (Aschworth, Bock), 42. Marais (Du Plessis, Miller) | ||
| Shots: 39:38
(6:23, 11:8, 10:4, 12:3).
Penalties: 3:2.
PP goals: 0:1.
SH goals: 0:0. Refferees: Gleisner (SWE), Kuloaro (FIN). Audience: 89. |
||
 Live coverage on onlajny.cz | ||
Game report
What was supposed to be a one-sided affair, South Africa surprisingly took the lead after 9 minutes thanks to Joaquim Valadas and his individual effort. Valadas rounded the keeper and put South Africa in front for the first time on the tournament.
Hungary played a nervous game and had serious trouble getting through the South African defense. Equalizing goal finally came after 28 minutes thanks to Marton Bontovics, who finished a quick breakaway after a mistake in the opponent´s defense.
Hungary was often denied by good saves of goalkeeper Bock and his night got even better when Andre Marais converted a powerplay with a fierce slapshot and sent his team in front.
However, South African joy was short-lived. Zoltan Revak equalized with a close range tap-in, Tamas Lencses then scored the winning goal via a deflection of a post and Attila Orban completed the scoring record with a controversial effort that was firstly allowed, then disallowed and finally allowed again. “South Africa has very good defenders, but we kept shooting and finally scored,” said Akos Kiss of Team Hungary.
Author: Lukas Peroutka
Game reactions
Tamas Dobos (Team Hungary coach): I think we made a lot of mistakes in the first half of the game. Some of our players underestimated the opponent. In the second half of the game, our performance was much better.
