England miss out on bronze, go down to Korea

JUNIOR WORLD CUP: KOREA v ENGLAND (U21 Women)

Boston, USA

England’s Junior World Cup campaign came to a frustrating conclusion today in Boston with Craig Parnham’s young charges going down 2-1 to Korea in the battle for the bronze medal.  Regardless of the result, England’s fourth place finish represents the best ever classification position for England’s U21 women at the Junior World Cup.

It was a very different game to the previous meeting between the teams 12 days ago with Korea riding their luck at times in the same way that England had on that earlier occasion.

Despite creating a number of opportunities, including flashing several passes across the Korean circle, England failed to find a way through in the first period and the match remained goalless at half time. 

Just six minutes into the second half Korea’s Seul Ki Cheon, one of the tournament’s top goal scorers, scored from a penalty corner to give the double World Champions the lead.  The goal was the Korean’s seventh in Boston.

In spite of the setback England continued to play as they had been and were finally rewarded with Jenny Hall’s goal in the 53^rd minute.  Dilly Newton’s penalty corner strike forced Eunbee Cho to make the save in the Korean goal and as the ball spun off her pads Jenny Hall reacted quickest to knock the ball over the line in the ensuing melee. 

Hall might have had another had her clever reverse stick flick at a penalty corner not just passed over the crossbar with the goalkeeper lying on the floor but it was the Korean number five, Dayoung Kim who became a match winner when she fired home with just over ten minutes of the match remaining.

England tried hard to get themselves back on level terms, including Georgie Twigg’s good drive that was halted close to the goal line by a well timed tackle, but Korea held on to secure the bronze medal, leaving England’s young women despondent. 

“We’re disappointed in light of how much ball we had and the number of chances we created but we didn’t take those chances today,” said Assistant Coach Martin Rodgers as he spoke after the match.  “Of course the girls are disappointed at the moment but we’ll look back on this later and be proud of what we have achieved here.”

England’s final position of fourth is three places higher than they have ever previously achieved at a Junior World Cup. 

There will be English participation in the Junior World Cup final tonight between the Netherlands and Argentina with umpire Frances Block and technical officer Jo Pennycook appointed to the match which gets underway at 15:30 local time (20:30 BST).

Results and Fixtures on Saturday 15 August:

Results and Fixtures on Sunday 16 August:

Tables.../

Classification Positions (at 19:30 on 16 August)