AARON Kershaw’s Olympic dress rehearsal began smoothly. The 20-year-old and his Australian teammates trounced the United States 7-0 in their opening match at the Olympic Youth Festival in Sydney on Wednesday.
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Kershaw hopes to use the event as a pre-cursor to the 2013 under 21s World Cup in India. Plenty of Youth Olympians have gone onto represent Australia at the sport’s prestigious tournament – the Olympic Games.
The young Australians are highly favoured to collect gold this week and Kershaw is keen to be a big part of their success.
The defender is determined not to let anything past his guard. So far, so good.
Australian captain Cameron Joyce was pleased with his team’s hitout.
“Not conceding a goal was pleasing but there plenty of things to work on,” Joyce said.
“Right from the start it was anyone’s game, we really had to grind it out for the first half but then we managed to get on top of them in the second half.”
Meantime Goulburn’s Olympian, Glenn Turner, began his Hockey India League on the wrong side of the scoresheet. Turner and the Mumbai Magicians, coached by Kookaburras mentor Ric Charlesworth, sustained a 2-1 loss at the hands of the Delhi Waveriders.
Turner returns to the pitch for the Magicians’ second match against Ranchi Rhinos tonight.