Beijing: Australia, the Netherlands and Spain all kept their clean tournament sheets in Olympic hockey Friday, with the Aussies and Dutch dominating Pool B and a tough fight developing behind Spain in Pool A.

Defending champions Australia powered to a 3-1 win over Pakistan, who must now pray for a miracle if they are to advance, having taken just three points from three games.

They opened the scoring through a Shakeel Abassi field goal, but Grant Shubert struck back four minutes later, then the Aussies finished the job off in the second half with a penalty corner goal from Jamie Dwyer and a field goal from Travis Brooks.

The encounter left Australia - with goals a-plenty to their credit after the 10-0 trouncing of South Africa - still atop pool B, ahead of the Netherlands, who in their earlier match beat Canada 4-2 to also stay in a winning streak.

In the late pool B match, Great Britain beat South Africa 2-0 with goals in each half by James Tindall and Matt Daly to increase their points tally to six and keep in touch with the Aussies and Dutch.

In Pool A Spain took their unbeaten record to three with Pol Amat grabbing the clinching 2-1 against bottom-of-the-table China three minutes from time to ensure they stay top.

New Zealand beat Belgium 4-2 while in the final match, Germany and South Korea parted 3-3 in an edgy affair that saw each slip a place in the pool to third and fourth respectively.

Philip Witte Matthias Witthaus und Christopher Zeller scored for the Germans, and Woon Kon Yeo, Jong Hyun Jang und Jong Ho Seo for South Korea.

With two rounds left, the result left the pool tight in the fight for second qualifier for the semi-finals, with New Zealand, Germany and South Korea on 6, 5 and 4 points respectively behind unbeaten Spain's 9.
Source : IANS