Ipswich fight back to celebrate plate victory
IPSWICH secured some silverware at the TigerTurf Cup nine-a-side pre-season hockey tournament in Brisbane on the weekend.
A goal to Ryan Smith helped Ipswich beat Gold Coast team Burleigh 1-0 in the Plate final at the Clem Jones Sports Complex at Carina on Sunday.
Ipswich opened its tournament with a 3-0 defeat to 2015 Sydney Premier Grade champions Ryde Hunters Hill, before losing 3-2 to reigning Brisbane Hockey League champions Bulimba.
In its final pool match on Saturday, Ipswich lost 5-2 to Gold Coast powerhouse Labrador, which featured 2016 Rio Olympian Adam Imer.
Host side Easts, fielding Australian Kookaburras players Robert Bell and three-time Olympic medallist Mark Knowles, humbled Ipswich 5-0 in the quarter-finals on Sunday.
The loss relegated Ipswich to the second-tier Plate competition.
Goals to Jason Alchin, Nathan Smith and Chris Mantell helped Ipswich win 3-1 over Pine Rivers St Andrews, led by Olympic gold medal winner Liam de Young, in the Plate semi-final. That victory pitched Ipswich into the Plate final against Burleigh.
Ipswich won 1-0.
Burleigh had earlier beaten Valley 3-2 in its Plate semi-final after the Gold Coast outfit, like Ipswich, had lost all three of its pool games on Saturday.
Sydney team Ryde Hunters Hill won back-to- back TigerTurf Cup titles, after beating Easts 4-1.
