Australia retained the men’s hockey World Cup title by outplaying Olympic silver medallists The Netherlands 6-1 in the final at the Kyocera Stadium on Sunday.
Chris Cirielo’s three penalty corner conversions was the feature of the contest that saw Australia retain the trophy they had won in New Delhi in 2010.
Playing their fourth successive World Cup final, Australia made up for the disappointment of losing two successive summit showdown to Germany.
The Netherlands opened the scoring in the 14th minute through Jeroen Hartzberger.
Australia equalised in the 19th minute through Cirello’s first penalty corner conversion.
Australia gained ascendancy with a 24th minute field goal through Kieran Govers’s reverse hit.
Glenn Turner scored three minutes into the second half before Cirielo scored with successive penalty corners in the 46th and 53rd minutes.
Jamie Dwyer rounded off the scoring in the 64th minute.
Arg take bronze
Earlier, Matias Parades’ brace helped Argentina men defeat England 2-0 to clinch the bronze medal. This is the first men’s World Cup medal for Argentina, whose women also got a bronze.