Wales defeated China 3-2 to take the fifth spot while Brazil edged Belarus 4-3 to finish seventh in the classification matches of the FIH World Series Final in Kuala Lumpur.
In both matches, the winning teams had to come down from being behind to register the wins.
“ It was not easy as we had a tough match last night and I am Glad we manage to edge Chiba,” said Wales Player Rupert Shipperley.
“ We had a good tournament overall as we defeated higher ranked teams, Cana and China and narrowly lost to Malaysia.
“ So, in reality, the rankings are not reflective of our progress and ability.”
China went ahead in the 3rd minute through Dong Yang.
However, Wales upped the tempo and went into the halftime break 3-1 with goals from Jacob Draper (14th minute), Gareth Furlong ( 26th minute) and James Carson ( 27th minute).
China forced three consecutive penalty corners early in the third quarter but Du Talake failed to make them count.
It was in the fourth quarter that China made good their fifth penalty corner as Su Lixing deflected in a penalty corner to make it 3-2.
Try as they did, China failed to breach the gutsy defending of the Welsh and had to settle for sixth.
Earlier Brazil came back from being 2-0 down to Belarus to win 4-3 and claim the 7th spot.
Despite it being a match to decide the wooden spoon. It turned out to be a highly entertaining match with some quality goals.
“ We kept believing in our ability although we were down 2-0 at one stage,” said Brazil’s man of the match Paul
“ We were rather unorganized in the first quarter and that gave Belarus the advantage.
“ We are happy to win this match and enjoyed the tournament as a whole.”
Belarus opened the scoring in the 21st minute through Aliaksandr Hanchaprou.
They doubled their advantage in the 26th minute with Uladzislau Belavusau.
But Brazil fought back through goals by Matheus Borges (26th minute), Gabriel De Grabdis (29#¥ minute) and Fabio Asiss ( 34th minute) for a 3-2 lead.
Belarus drew level via Artur Kadran in the 35th minute.
But it was Brazil that had the final say, scoring the winning goal through Lucas Paixao in the 56th minute.
