Great Britain downed by world champions Australia in Malaysia

By Sportsbeat staff

GREAT Britain must defeat Korea if they're to have any chance of booking a rematch with world champions Australia in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup final in Malaysia after crashing to the Kookaburras on Thursday.

ON TARGET: Richard Mantell grabbed a goal for Great Britain but Andy Halliday's men still crashed to defeat to Australia

Commonwealth champions Australia raced into an early lead thanks to goals from Brett Dancer Christopher Ciriello and while Richard Mantell pulled one back with a second-half penalty corner, Great Britain crashed to a 2-1 defeat.

Great Britain now sit second in the table with nine points from their five games, level with Pakistan, who also have one match remaining.

Pakistan will face hosts Malaysia, who are yet to collect a point from their four games, meaning anything other than victory for Great Britain against Korea is unlikely to be enough.

But despite seeing his side suffer their second defeat of the competition, Great Britain team manager Andy Halliday believes there are plenty of positives to take from their clash with world number one team.

"We paid for a sluggish start, which gave the initiative to Australia," said Halliday.

Having gone one nil down and then lost a second before half-time we were always chasing the game in the second half but there were a lot of positive signs in our performance."

Great Britain fell behind from the first penalty corner of the match as Dancer stroked home as the ball went in off Cannock goalkeeper James Fair.

Great Britain fell further behind just before the half hour mark when Ciriello put the Australians 2-0 up from another penalty corner, while a minute later at the other end Richard Smith saw his penalty corner saved.

Great Britain survived another penalty corner effort from Ciriello before Mantell saw another of his own saved.  The resulting clearance was deemed dangerous though and from the following corner Mantell flicked the ball home to make it 2-1 with 13 minutes remaining.

Despite the goal, Great Britain could not find a late equaliser and Australia held on to book their place in Sunday's final.