Hayward hat-trick fires Kookaburras past improved Malaysia
Published Tue 26 Apr 2022
Three trademark drag flick goals from defender Jeremy Hayward has propelled the Kookaburras to a 5-0 result and third straight win over Malaysia tonight.
Hayward’s hat-trick plus a rare goal from Jake Harvie and a scintillating team move finished by Jake Whetton in the final quarter made it three convincing victories for the Kookaburras without a goal conceded ahead of Thursday’s final match.
Blake Govers, who currently sits on 99 international goals, was a notable absentee from the Kookaburras line-up having been deemed a close COVID contact ruling him out of the final two matches of the series.
Having conceded early in the opening two matches, a spirited Malaysia started this encounter with increased vigour following the 7-0 result from two days earlier.
Scores remained level until the 11th minute when Hayward capitalised on the Kookaburras’ opening penalty corner.
The lead was quickly doubled when persistence from Tom Wickham created an opening for Harvie to score unmarked at the back post.
Malaysian goalkeeper Adrian Albert reeled off some fine saves to keep the visitors in the contest.
Johan Durst, who replaced Andrew Charter in the Kookaburras net for the second half, ensured Malaysia would remain without a goal in the series so far as he produced a sharp double save.
Hayward’s second and third goals again came courtesy of well executed penalty corners in the space of a 5 minute period of the third quarter to effectively put the game out of Malaysia’s reach.
As fatigue started to set in late in the contest, Whetton then sent an unstoppable shot into the top corner as he gathered a full head of steam after a sublime Kookaburras move that started at the opposite end of the pitch.
“Malaysia have some good penalty corner defence. We had 18 penalty corners on Sunday so we had a look at how we could improve that tonight and to score three feels pretty good,” said a modest Hayward post match.
“Playing three games in a row against the same team is always interesting…we are trying to improve each time and work on our own game and how we can better it.”
“Malaysia have definitely improved over the three games and they challenged us today in different ways, so we’ll need to make sure we continue to make progress again on Thursday.”
The final match of the series is at 12pm local time (2pm AEST) on Thursday at Perth Hockey Stadium. Tickets are on sale now with the match livestreamed on LIVEHockey.
Match Details
Kookaburras 5 (Hayward 11’/37’/42’, Harvie 13’, Whetton 55’)
Malaysia 0
@ Perth Hockey Stadium
Kookaburras: 4.Jake Harvie, 5.Tom Wickham, 7.Nathan Ephraums, 8.Johan Durst (gk), 9.Jacob Anderson, 10.Josh Beltz, 11.Eddie Ockenden (c), 12.Jake Whetton, 14.Dylan Martin, 15.Josh Simmonds, 19.Craig Marais, 20.Ky Willott, 21.Jack Welch, 22.Flynn Ogilvie, 23.Daniel Beale, 26.James Collins, 30.Andrew Charter (gk), 32.Jeremy Hayward
