The New Zealand men's hockey team were just unable to make it a golden double today when they were beaten 2-0 by Australia in the final. Earlier the New Zealand women had beaten Australia 4-1 to win the women's gold medal.
It was a tight men's battle between the trans-Tasman rivals with a strong second quarter from Australia allowing them to score twice to take a 2-0 advantage into halftime.
Aaron Kleinschmidt scored from open play in the 21st minute and Matt Dawson converted from a penalty corner two minutes from the end of the quarter.
The New Zealanders created their share of chances and came close to scoring on several occasions, but were shut out by the world No 1-ranked hosts.
New Zealand coach Darren Smith said while it was disappointing not to win gold, the performance throughout the competition was impressive.
“Today I didn’t think we were as clinical as we needed to be, but Australia were the better team and overall we are quite happy,” he said.
“We put together some good hockey over the past few weeks and played very well especially early in the pool stage."
The silver medal adds to the Commonwealth Games tally for the New Zealand men, who previously won silver in Manchester in 2002 and bronze at Delhi in 2010.
New Zealand scored 21 goals in the tournament, the most. Their 11 penalty corner success was also the tournament high.
Kane Russell and Hugo Inglis were New Zealand’s highest individual scorers of the tournament, with six goals each. All Russell’s were from penalty corners and that tally was also the tournament record. Inglis’ three were all field goals, again the highest number by any player in the tournament.
England beat India 2-1 for the bronze medal.
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