It was a fantastic 4-0 victory for Scotland U21 Men against Finland to kick start their U21 EuroHockey Champion II in Lausanne. Goals by Jack Adams; Ben Galloway; Jedd Campbell and Tommy Austin saw the Scots got off to a winning start. Tomorrow they face Wales in game two of the tournament.
From the first whistle the Scots were camped in the Finland half but despite creating a number of chances they found the Finish keeper on top form. They thought they’d scored the opening goal from a corner but the ball was judged to have not left the circle, so things remained level at the first break.
It was in the second quarter that Scotland made the breakthrough and it came via a Jack Adams. Some lovely work on the baseline evoked a slick exchanged which was finished off by Adams into the bottom left corner for 1-0.
In the second half Ben Galloway doubled Scotland’s lead with a beautiful drag flick into the bottom left corner.
Jedd Campbell supplied Scotland’s third with a carbon copy of Galloway’s strike before Tommy Austin completed the scoring. Austin took the ball in midfield, worked his way into the circle, and from a 45 degree angle unleashed a reverse stick strike into the bottom right corner for 4-0.
Austin was a standout in midfield for Scotland while Henry Porter and John Donald distributed the ball well from deep in a fine victory to get their tournament started.
Head Coach Gavin Byers said, “We’re off to a good start. We would have liked to have scored more goals, as we created lots of chances, but the performance was good and we’ll look to improve our conversion rate as we progress. The other games won’t be like this one, and we’ll look forward to stepping up in the games ahead.”