Kerry hails his 'awesome' England after claiming Germany win

By Sportsbeat staff

ENGLAND women's hockey coach Danny Kerry hailed his team as ‘awesome' following a 2-1 Samsung Champions Trophy victory over Germany in Nottingham.

DELIGHTED: England hockey coach Danny Kerry called his team 'awesome' following their 2-1 win over Germany (Ady Kerry/England Hockey)

Helen Richardson scored the 24th minute breakthrough goal for England, who beat Argentina in their opening match before going down to Olympic and world champions the Netherlands.

Natascha Keller cancelled it out from a penalty corner ten minutes from time, only for Richardson to score again just three minutes later.

However, much of the post-match discussion revolved around the hosts' successful appeal to the video umpire to rule out a German goal when the scores were deadlocked at 0-0.

England protested that Nina Masselmann had both feet inside the pitch before taking a penalty corner and, following a lengthy examination of the evidence, umpire Lisa Roach cancelled out Tina Bachmann's strike - to the fury of German coach Michael Behrmann.

Richardson scored moments later to establish control and despite some frantic late defending, Kerry believes his side were value for their victory.

"It [the injecting player's foot being in the field of play] was actually brought up by one of the players in a team meeting," said Kerry.

"The players are encouraged to do some analysis and we discussed it in that meeting for some time. 

"I understand Michael's disappointment but I thought the referral was a good decision."

However, the England coach is cautious about over confidence ahead of their next match with China on Thursday.

"The players have come a huge distance in a year.  We're still got 11 players under 25 out there," he added.  

"I'm delighted but the World Cup is fundamentally what it is all about and there are teams here that are definitely holding things back."