Birmingham — Amy Gibson was hailed as “absolutely outstanding” as the Scottish goalkeeper played a crucial hand in keeping the Commonwealth women’s champions on their guard on Saturday night.
New Zealand, fresh from tournament hockey at the Women’s World Cup, edged the part-time Scots 1-0 courtesy of Rose Tynan’s 10th-minute strike, while Gibson – aided by Nikki Cochrane – shut out all six of her saves before they went for broke 10 minutes from time after being denied a leveller.
“I think both our goalkeepers are just incredible – lots of people have started to see that over the last few years and there were some incredible saves by them,” said Jen Eadie.
New Zealand had nine PCs and created multiple scoring opportunities to the Scots’ limited forays into the Kiwi circle.
But Eadie looked to have equalised for the Scots before the break after a PC routine, before a referral deemed the ball not leaving the circle. It was certainly a harsh decision.
“I think it was a good battle and it would have been nice to get the result. [It was] a bit disappointing that it was a disallowed goal, as well,” said Eadie.
It left the Kiwis to edge over the line and will now face Australia to see who tops Pool B.
Aniwaka Haumaha said: “If we think about the opportunities and how many [goals] we could have put in – credit to the Scottish goalkeeper, she played absolutely outstanding today.
“But what a game, what a crowd. We haven’t played in front of a crowd like that for a long time, and it was absolutely amazing to come home with the win.”
Earlier, India beat Wales 3-1, who lost their second game of the tournament after an opening defeat to Canada. A Vandana Katariya double gave the Eves the win, with Xenna Hughes’ strikes giving the Welsh some light to get back into the match.
Goalkeeper Rose Thomas said: “I was really proud of the girls. I very much enjoy playing India, I think we put in a massive stint, we really pushed them to the last minute and had to put them under a lot of pressure.
“The work-rate was outstanding. An excellent effort, much better performance than we had yesterday as well, which is really important. We’re building some momentum and to push somebody much higher ranked then us is outstanding.”
