Korea produced a superb fight-back from 3-1 down to claim a 5-3 victory over South Africa. The result has sealed Korea’s place in the 5th-6th place classification match, while South Africa will now play in the 9th-10th place play-off.
Sulette DAMONS scored her second goal of the tournament in just the second minute of the match, finding the net with a close range tap-in. It took Korea until the 34th minute to find an equaliser, with captain LEE Seon Ok scoring from the penalty spot.
South Africa took the initiative in the 50th minute when Cindy BOTHA slid in to force the ball into the net from the left, giving her side a 2-1 lead. Things went from bad to worse for Korea when CHEON Seul Ki was given a Yellow Card in the 52nd minute for a poor challenge on Pietee COETZEE, and South Africa made their opponents pay when BOTHA netted her second less that sixty seconds later from open play to make the score 3-1.
Despite being down to ten players, Korea pulled a goal back when KIM Bo Mi deflected a penalty corner high into the roof of the net in the 55th minute before CHEON made amends for her Yellow Card by sending a low penalty corner flick beyond South Africa keeper Mariette RIX to tie the scores. Korea moved ahead for the first time in the match when KIM Young Ran smashed a reverse stick shot into the net after South Africa failed to clear their defensive lines, before the 5-3 result was sealed by PARK Mi Hyun’s 67th minute field goal.
Match Review 26 – Korea v South Africa 5-3
> Korea came back from two goals down (1-3) to beat South Africa 5-3.
> Korea will now play the play-off for fifth place against Australia or Germany.
> South Africa qualify for the Final 9-10, exceeding their performance at the last two World Cups when they finished 13th (2002) and 12th (2006).
> The last time Korea scored at least 5 goals in a World Cup match was in 2002 when they beat Scotland 6-2.
> Sulette Damons opened the score in the 2nd minute of the game. This was South Africa’s fastest World Cup goal since 2002, when Pietie Coetzee scored in the first minute of the game against Russia (4-1).
> Cindy Botha scored twice in two minutes to become the first RSA player in eight years to score twice in a World Cup match. The last one to do so was Pietie Coetzee in 2002 (vs UKR 3-1).
> Five different players scored for Korea in today’s match.
> Korea converted two of six penalty corners awarded today. Before today’s match they had only converted only 1 of 14.
Source: www.worldhockey.org
