Dark horses France defeated Australia 3-1 in the quarterfinals of the Men’s Hockey Junior World Cup, advancing to the semifinals stage at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil this afternoon.
The French will play in Thursday’s semi-finals against the winner of the Pakistan-Spain quarterfinals match, which will be played later in the day.
With the Paris Olympic Games 2024 not far in the distance, the France junior hockey players are already showing impressive performance in the JWC.
Having won the silver medal in New Delhi 2013 and bronze in Bhubaneswar 2021, the Les Bleus surprised the Australians by taking a 3-0 lead by the third quarter and were comfortably headed into Thursday’s semi-finals.
The 2023 squad contains eight players who were part of the bronze medal-winning side in 2021, including Mathis Clément, Noé Jouin, Gaspard Xavier and Brieuc Delemazure, who all represented France seniors at the EuroHockey Championship 2023 in Mönchengladbach, Germany.
Midfielder Jouin pushed France into the lead with a 17th-minute penalty corner conversion, and Gaspard Denis extended the lead 2-0 with an open goal. Jouin scored his second and France’s third goal in the 43rd minute via penalty corner conversion.
The Australians replied through Cooper Burns brace in the 43rd and 48th minutes. As the clock ticked away, the Burras camped in the French circle in search of the equaliser.
Matthis Dierckens, France coach, said:
“This is my personal opinion. I respect Australian hockey a lot. But I think it was a French player’s mistake we took a yellow card and conceded a goal. We could have won this game 4-1. If we had not made that mistake, Australia would not have had the momentum to come back and score.”
Jay Stacy, Australia coach, said:
“I thought we have done some really good things, to be fair. We lost momentum there for a little while. The French were good opposition, and there were few moments of poor defending and poor decisions making and things like that which is going to happen at this level. I am quite disappointed at this moment.
But I am really pleased with the boys. They didn’t give up until the final seconds. They kept fighting, and that is part of the Burras brand. Now, the battle is still not over. The boys have been working hard to improve their performance, and we have some strong teams to play against in the 5-8th placing matches.”
