Great Britain rounded out their World Hockey League campaign in style against India on Sunday and captain Barry Middleton admits he couldn’t have asked for a better end to the tournament.
GB showed their superior quality to cruise to a 5-1 victory over India in Antwerp, Belgium and pick up the bronze medal.
That win completed a productive fortnight for Middleton and co as they secured qualification for next summer’s Olympics in Rio and suffered just one loss – a 3-1 semi-final defeat to Australia.
Alastair Brogdon got the ball rolling against India by deflecting in Dan Fox’s shot from a penalty corner before Chris Griffiths doubled the lead.
Ashley Jackson was then on hand to complete a rapid counter-attack, Adam Dixon converted a penalty corner and Middleton himself fired in number five before Rupinder Singh’s consolation.
And after making his 350th combined appearance for Great Britain and England, Middleton could reflect on a job well done.
“It's been a good week and nice to get 350 caps,” said Middleton. “This was all about qualifying for the Olympics, and once we’d done that, we wanted to go and show what a good team we are.
“We did that against Australia without getting a win, so we wanted to finish off the tournament properly today and I think we went and did that. We can be really proud of what we’ve done over these two weeks.
“Something we pride ourselves on is being good at the end of the game and still pushing on and it worked for us today."
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