England men set up EuroHockey semi-final clash with Germany

Ashley Jackson is urging his England team to keep their standards as high as possible after storming into the semi-final of the EuroHockey Championship in London with a 4-0 victory over Spain.

England made a bright start and five minutes into the second quarter Jackson put the hosts in front before Barry Middleton added a quick fire second.

Chris Griffiths added a third before Jackson rounded off a fine performance in the final few minutes.

It means that England will now face Germany in their final-four clash and Jackson knows his side face a tough test.

“We’ve played well tonight but it still feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity because we play the Germans in the semi-final now,” said Jackson.

“We’re confident going into the game but we have to avoid a repeat of the lack of performance like happened against the Dutch. That was really frustrating but it was nice to bounce back from that tonight.

“It was very important to come out and play well today, but we need to do that in the next game, too. If we play like we did against the Netherlands we’ll be playing for third and fourth.

“We’re capable of bouncing back from that but that’s not the team we want to be. We want to be the team that plays well in the semi-final and is competing for gold medals.

“I have 100 per cent faith in our team. I know that a solid performance will give us a great chance of getting to the final. We are certainly good enough to win, it’s an exciting time.”

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