Hockey: Morale boost for England

England 3

Argentina 0

ENGLAND SAVED their best performance for the last of their three Tests against Argentina at the National Sports Centre at Bisham Abbey yesterday with a comprehensive victory to win the series 3-0.

"It will give the squad a lot of confidence as we depart for Kuala Lumpur and the Commonwealth Games," said the England coach, Barry Dancer. "Three days was a testing schedule but with semi-finals and finals in the games on successive days it was an extremely good experience."

Although England's start yesterday was not as good as Mark Pearn's 41- second strike in their 4-3 victory on Saturday, they looked sharp and impressive from the first whistle with Russell Garcia opening the scoring after five minutes from their first penalty corner.

In a torrential downpour England looked good in all departments with Simon Mason giving a class performance in goal as Jimmi Lewis and David Luckes had in their previous two games.

Argentina always battled with courage and persistence but their sporadic counter- attacks were cumbersome and inadequate compared with the well-oiled England machine.

When they did break Mason and the hard-tackling Julian Halls were equal to the occasion.

England's second and third goals, three minutes either side of the interval, were the results of splendid flowing moves that tore the Argentinian defence asunder. After sabre-rattling in the opening minutes of the second half, Ben Sharp won the ball in midfield, sent Danny Hall away down the wing and was then in the centre of the circle to play his second. Although failing to score again England dominated the rest of the game.

ENGLAND: S Mason (Reading); M Johnson (Cannock), J Halls (unattached), B Waugh (captain, Southgate), G Fordham (Hounslow); D Woods (Southgate), J Pidcock (Cannock), R Garcia (Harveste Huder, Hamburg); S Head (East Grinstead), D Hall (Guildford), M Pearn (Reading). Substitutes used: B Sharp (Cannock), J Wallis (Teddington), J Wyatt (Reading), B Garrard (Teddington).

ARGENTINA: M Ronconi; A Castelli, C Retegui (capt), M Pellegrino, G Orozco; J Hourquebie, M Caldas, D Chiodo; F Moresi, S Capurro, T MacCormik. Substitutes used: L Melgarejo, G Garreta.

Umpires: C Hough (England), E Saladino (Argentina).