England head coach Bobby Crutchley believes England need to take a leaf out of Belgium’s book and find form in front of goal after losing their second World League Semi-Final warm-up match in Antwerp.
Crutchley’s lost the first of three warm-up fixtures against Belgium 5-2 defeat on Monday and went down 4-1 in their second encounter despite getting off to a fine start thanks to captain Barry Middleton.
Middleton scored in the very first minute however three goals in the space of ten minutes from Loick Luypaert, Florent van Aubel and Tom Boon thereafter put Belgium 3-1 ahead with Xavier Reckinger adding a fourth late on.
And Crutchley, who handed a senior international debut to Phil Roper, a member of Britain’s silver-medal winning team at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival earlier this year, wants England to be more clinical like Belgium.
“We had exactly the same start as the first game and once again we were too passive across the first 35 minutes,” said Crutchley.
“I thought we played really well in the second half, but Belgium are along way ahead of us in terms of their clinical play, and that’s really shown over these two fixtures.
“I am slightly frustrated because we’ve shown some really strong play at times, but we need to start to convert that play into goals which we have not done so far over here.”
© Sportsbeat 2013
Photo Ady Kerry / England Hockey