Bellingen’s 18-year-old Justin Alford has returned home with a bronze medal after competing at the Oceania Pacific Games in Suva, Fiji.
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Though Justin was the youngest player in the Australian U21s country team, no one would have known given the quality of hockey he played.
Justin’s team narrowly missed out on the gold/silver game by going down to Fiji in penalty shoot-outs after the game was tied 2-2 at full time.
The Australian team took on Papua New Guinea in the bronze medal game and after a tight first half came out with a 6-1 victory to bring home the bronze medal.
Throughout the tournament, yhr Australian team scored 37 goals and had only eight scored against them. Definitely not a bad effort considering the boys came together for their first training session two days prior to the games.
In the final, the New Zealand President’s XI took gold over Fiji with a 5-3 victory.