Monday 2 June 2014

England vs USA: Hinch struggling with decision making

In the early rounds of the Women's game, another basic mistake on show, was Maddie Hinch's decision making. Choosing to log straightaway without a stand and wait approach, with a reactive 'log'/long barrier to cover low, was a cause of both America's goals. Lying down takes the goalkeeper out of play and Hinch showed little athleticism/agility in getting back up once the choice had been proved not to be effective.

While America are known to prefer the 'smash and hope' at corners, they were tactical with the deflection option as the player pushed into the D for the redirect off the straight strike. For the first goal, Hinch could have stayed on her feet a little longer, before diving across to cover, as taught in Australia for example; James Bailey demonstrating this properly in the Euro Hockey League last year at corners too. And for the second, she again chose to leg, when the deflection was at her left post this time; the opposite of the original goal.

At this level of the game, decision making counts for so much. And with such simple mistakes, technical fails exposed are even more obvious and difficult to respond to, as shooters 'sound out' their goalkeeping opponents. There is more to goalkeeping than simply looking good with a dive. Being able to kill off chances before they even developed is a skill that is clearly overlooked but is ever so important for example. And when making decisions, a goalkeeper has to be confident in their decisions when making them in-game, to deal with finger pointing afterwards. But Hinch will be kicking herself over her tactical approach at corners so far.

(can't seem to embed , so here is : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwwOuqNht5k)

For England's goal, Kintzer did well initially (using an approach Hinch would be better taking heed of), but bought the 'fake' and dropped to her left, causing balance issues and not being able to push off to her left to save with the pad effectively. Jackie Kintzer made an outstanding stop to extend to cover her right save with an extended save, although might have 'over egged it' a little for the crowd! England weren't as clinical either, fluffing on a goal scoring chance that she managed to dive to cover down to her left, which could have really changed the game in England's favour. 

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