Hockey: Hawes snatches place in semi-finals for England's men
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Your support makes all the difference.Ben Hawes put England through to the semi-finals of the European Nations Cup by scoring twice in their decisive 4-3 victory over Poland here last night.
The men's team will meet Germany in the semi-finals while England's women, who beat Ireland 3-0 in their last pool match, play the host nation, Spain, on Thursday.
England's men went behind to the first of three penalty-corner goals from Poland's Tomasz Dulkiewicz in the 26th minute, but fought back with great determination after the interval. Hawes scored the first of his two goals five minutes into the second half and Jimmy Wallis put England ahead a couple of minutes later, but Poland equalised within a minute.
Craig Parnham followed up another Hawes corner to put England ahead at 3-2 before Dulkiewicz completed his hat-trick. Then with four minutes remaining, Hawes scored the winner, summing up his emotions in one word, "brilliant".
Mike Hamilton, the England team leader, said: "It shows what we can do. This was the first time in the tournament we have played to our potential."
England's women completed their pool games with maximum points by beating Ireland. After Jane Smith had given England a seventh-minute lead they never looked in trouble, with second-half goals from Helen Grant and Anna Bennett sealing victory. But the Irish never gave up and might have presented more of a problem had a deflection from Karen Bateman beaten Carolyn Reid instead of rattling against the crossbar.
Tricia Heberle, the England coach, said: "We put on a workmanlike performance against a stubborn opponent. We turned over a lot of possession and were quite sloppy in our attacking circle work. These are two critical areas of our game that must be addressed."
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