Australia finished off the round-robin matches in the 12th Sultan of Johor Cup on a triumphant note, recording a 9-3 win over the Malaysians at the Johor Hockey Stadium on Taman Daya.

With this victory, the Australians will play Great Britain in Saturday’s final. The Britons defeated Japan 3-1 in an earlier match.

The Burras shared 10 equal points with Great Britain and India after five rounds of matches. The Australians, however, hold the advantage of 12 goals difference to top the table standings.

Jon Bleby’s Great Britain are second and P.R. Sreejesh’s India are third. The Kiwis held India to a 3-3 draw and will go into a showdown again but this time in the playoffs for a bronze medal, while Malaysia and Japan will battle in 5th-6th place.

National juniors head coach I. Vikneswaran, said: “We knew the Australians would come at us strongly right at the start. We took some time to settle down and by then they had taken a 4-0 lead. Furthermore, we gave an opportunity to our reserve goalkeeper Khairul Amirin in the first quarter. If we don’t give him a chance, when will he get to play?”

“We gave unnecessary goals. Goals that can be avoided. From the eight penalty corners that we had we scored two goals. One was from a rebound through Azimuddin (Kamaruddin). The boys tried hard. But sometimes trying hard is not enough, you need to know what needs to be done and when. This is another learning situation,” he added.

The Young Tigers had few opportunities in the first quarter while the Burras took control of the game. Coach Vikneswaran introduced No 2 goalkeeper Khairul in the first quarter instead of Mohamad Rafaizul Saini. Unfortunately, the Australians went on to take a 4-0 lead by then with goals from Liam Henderson (2nd), Dylan Downey (3rd), Ian Grobbelaar (7th), and Jesse Absolom (15th).

Muhammad Danish Danial (24th) and Azimuddin (29th) reduced the deficit to 2-4 for the Malaysians before the end of the first half.

Regular goalkeeper Rafaizul took over the duties in the second quarter. But the change of guards did not help much.

The Aussies dominated the third and fourth quarters and scored five more goals to take the score to 9-3. Toby Mallon (33rd), Daykin Stanger (37) and Liam (53rd) scored for Australia while Harris Oman added one for the Young Tigers.

Patrick Andrew extended the lead to 8-3 with a field goal in the 55th minute, and Lucas Toonen stamped his mark with the ninth goal.