England's title bid gets tough

13 April 2012

England's men saw their hopes of retaining their EuroHockey Nations Championship title suffer a blow as they were beaten 4-3 by Holland in Moenchengladbach.

The result leaves England second in Pool B and while victory tomorrow against France, who are bottom of the group, will put them through to Friday's semis they are likely to face Germany in a repeat of the 2009 final.

England scored through Matt Daly, Iain Mackay and Ashley Jackson but that was not enough with Holland's Billy Bakker doing most of the damage with a hattrick.

"They played well," said England captain Barry Middleton. "We maybe contributed to it a little bit with a couple of mistakes. We weren't completely at our best but I don't think they were a lot better than us at all."

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