England came from two goals down to beat Canada 4-2 in the quarter-final of the Hockey World League Semi Finals in London and qualify for the World Cup.
Canada took an early 2-0 lead with goals from John Smythe and Gordon Johnston but Barry Middleton and Mark Gleghorne brought the hosts level.
David Goodfield’s goal after 38 minutes put England ahead with Sam Ward adding a fourth as the hosts booked their place in Saturday’s semi-finals where they will play Netherlands.
A strong Keegan Pereira run set up Smythe for Canada's first after nine minutes with Johnston adding a second from a penalty corner.
Middleton pulled a goal back when he got his stick onto a high ball into the D and, with Canada a man down, Gleghorne got his fifth goal of the tournament to make it 2-2.
Phil Roper created the third with a fine run, his chipped cross was met by Goodfield who bundled the ball home, and Sam Ward completed the victory with his eighth goal of the tournament. And Goodfield was delighted with the character shown by the team and their progression as a group through the tournament so far. "For us it’s absolutely everything, obviously we’ve now qualified for the World Cup and it was an absolutely brilliant game for us," he said.
“Going two goals behind, credit to what Canada were doing, we had to really dig deep to go out there and get the result we wanted but all credit to Canada for that game.
“We’re a completely new group so we’re just looking forward to every game, we want to put our game out there and take steps forward.”
Earlier in the day Scotland concluded their Hockey World League campaign with a 6-3 defeat to Korea in the ninth/tenth play-off.
Tim Atkins put the Blue Sticks ahead but Jongsuk Bae equalised and Jihun Yang’s penalty corner had the Koreans ahead before Jonghyun Jang added a third.
Junwoo Jeong, Jungjun Lee and Weonki Hwang made the score 6-1 though the brave Scots battled and Kenny Bain pulled two goals back late on.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s women earned their first point of their Hockey World League semi-final campaign in Brussels with a 1-1 draw against China.
The Pool A encounter saw Scotland take the lead thanks to a Rebecca Marchant goal but Gu Bingfeng fired in a penalty corner with nine minutes remaining to earn a draw.
Despite conceding late, goalkeeper Amy Gibson was satisfied the result with games against Italy and Korea still to come.
“They’re ranked higher than us in the world, we were looking for the win today but we’re happy with a point in the end,” she said.
“We’ve been working really hard as a team to try and keep solid and focus on our strengths and using them to our advantage.
“The coach is happy and wants us to pick up points wherever we can. Every team in this pool is ranked higher than us so we’re just looking to put on a good show and just try our best.” Sportsbeat 2017