Charlesworth upset with video referral

Australia coach Ric Charlesworth said the video referral system made his team's life difficult, as there were many wrong decisions against them during the 2-3 loss to England in their first match of the hockey World Cup in New Delhi.

"The umpires made lots of decisions against us and the video referral decisions went against us. It happened in the Champions Trophy in Australia last year also. But it is the system here, what can we do?" he said at the post-match press conference.

"Towards the close of the match our chance to have a penalty-corner was overturned. I could not believe it. That was a penalty-corner," he added.

Charlesworth said his boys have to blame themselves for the defeat as they missed chances galore, including 12 penalty-corners of which they converted only one.

"We missed at least 28 chances and how can you win if you missed like that. We did not do well in penalty-corner conversion. We are disappointed. Now our next match against India on Tuesday has become a must-win match," he said.

"But this is not the first time we are in such a situation and it is a long way to go in the tournament," said Charlesworth who had coached India earlier.

Australia captain Jamie Dwyer was also a disappointed man and said his side will have to put up a good performance against India on Tuesday in front of their home crowd.

"We are disappointed and it was frustrating that you have lots of chances and you don't convert them. We have to recover and regroup before the India match.

"The crowd was fantastic today and they would be cheering the Indians on Tuesday. We have to come up with a much improved performance against India," he said.

England captain Barry Middleton said that they were happy to have a winning start in the tournament but added that his side will have to improve its performance.

"It is a great start in the tournament, especially a win against Australia. But we would not have wanted that Australia had so many chances though they did not capitalise on them.

"We think we can beat any top side of the world on our day. The win has not changed our target of reaching the semi-final but we have to improve in the next matches," he said.

- Men's Hockey World Cup - Complete Coverage