Canberra Chill and Hockey Club Melbourne will be fighting it out to secure a breakthrough Hockey One men's gold medal on Sunday after claiming thrilling semi-finals in Hobart.
Minor premiers Canberra scored inside the last five seconds to squeeze out a 3-2 win over defending champions Brisbane Blaze.
Melbourne withstood a late surge from Perth to score a 4-3 win In the second semi.
The Chill’s Dylan Brick scored twice from drag flicks from penalty corners, including the last-gasp winner.
Brisbane had plenty of circle entries but weren’t as clinical as the Chill, who scored the first two goals.
Davis Atkin scored from a well-executed penalty corner routine in the 14th minute and Brick netted the first of his brace in the 40th.
Both their goals came while Canberra were two men down with Gary Backhus and Jay Macdonald picking up a green and yellow card respectively.
Kookaburra Daniel Beale scored in the 44th minute after a Brisbane penalty corner was moved out of the circle and he then added a
conversion.
Canberra defended resolutely with goalkeeper and long-serving Kookaburra Andrew Charter making several good saves, before Brick struck at the death.
“The boys were selfless out there, there were big individual efforts to keep us in the game,” Charter told 7plus.
In the second semi, Melbourne just held out after Perth threatened to repeat the comeback in their regular season clash, when they came from 4-1 down at three-quarter time to win 5-4.
“Last time we played them they obviously overran us but learnings from that game put us in good stead for this last quarter,” Melbourne and Kookaburras defender Josh Simmonds said.
“Now we’ve got to recover and look forward to Canberra tomorrow.”
All but the last of the nine goals In the second semi came from a penalty corner, with James Day giving Perth a fifth-minute lead.
HC Melbourne hit back to lead at quarter-time following goals from captain Damon Steffens and Brad Marais.
The second quarter produced few clear-cut chances, but Perth goalkeeper Ben Rennie kept his team in the game in the third with three important saves.
Cooper Burns displayed great skill and control in little space to prise open the obdurate Perth defence from a penalty corner four minutes from three-quarter time.
Tom Harvie dragged the Thundersticks back into the clash with a fierce shot from a penalty corner 40 seconds after the final quarter started.
Within four minutes Melbourne regained their two-goal advantage after Conner Otterbach rounded off a slick move, though he missed the conversion attempt.
Melbourne then survived three penalty corners and a field goal attempt to secure their spot in the gold medal game.
