Hockey Austria

Austria - Ireland 1:1 (1:1)
Goalscorers: Jelinek; Butler

The first game of this weekend's 4 Nations Tournament (featuring the
European Cup participants Ireland, Russia, and Switzerland, as well as host
Austria) in Vienna ended in a big surprise as Austria managed a draw with
the much favored Irish team, even though they had to do without star striker
Martin Mayer and without Fabian Ringler.

The Austrians started strong, playing offensively, and getting an early
opportunity in the 3rd minute with the first of a total seven short corners
in the game - none of which could be converted. A couple of minutes later,
Austria went one up nonetheless when after a bad mistake of the Irish
defense Georg Jelinek received the ball almost on the goal line, and scored
a sensational goal from a seemingly impossible angle.

Austria kept up well with the strong Irish side for the bigger part of the
first half, but found them increasingly harder to keep at bay towards the
break. The Irish created more and more chances but it took 32 minutes and
five short corners until they managed the equalizer when flicking at a short
corner, Stephen Butler put the ball high up under the bar, out of reach of
the Austrian goalkeeper.

Ireland kept up their strong performance well into the second half, but from
around the 50th minute, the game started to deteriorate, with both teams
playing an increasingly physical game that resulted in 3 yellow cards - for
Justin Sheriff and Graham Shaw of Ireland, and Klaus Kaltenbacher of the
Austrian team. Through the yellow cards, Austria was two players up for
almost five minutes, yet could not capitalize on the advantage, as the Irish
played undeterred and far from defensive.

The best opportunity for Austria in the second half came from a short corner
in the 49th minute, when Georg Mrkvicka put the ball only centimeters wide;
the best opportunity for the Irish side was Andy Barbour receiving a long
ball and coming into the circle alone, being denied the goal only by the
circumspect reaction of Austrian keeper Christian Bauer.


The event is being covered on the website of the Austrian hockey federation, www.hockey.at

Next games:
FRI 06/27 16:45 Ireland - Switzerland
FRI 06/27 19:00 Austria - Russia
SAT 06/28 15:00 Ireland - Russia
SAT 06/28 17:15 Austria - Switzerland
SUN 06/29 11:00 Switzerland - Russia

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