Goalkeeper James Mazarelo believes the feel-good vibe inside the England hockey squad is behind their fast start to the Commonwealth Games.
Altrincham’s Mazarelo, 21, featured in England’s opening 6-0 win over Ghana on Friday but was an unused substitute behind Ollie Payne as they saw off old rivals Wales 4-2 at the University of Birmingham on Sunday to maintain their 100 percent record.
Sam Ward fired in the opener inside two minutes with a powerful strike from a penalty corner that had the home crowd up on their feet.
Lewis Prosser’s neat deflection made it 1-1 at half-time before Nick Bandurak scored his fourth penalty corner of the Games to give England the lead in the third quarter.
Wales midfielder James Carson reacted fastest to smash home another equaliser in the final 15 but England immediately went back in front through Phillip Roper before Bandurak volleyed home from close range to put the result beyond doubt.
After not taking the field, Mazarelo said: “That is the nature of goalkeeping. The beauty of it is we’ve got such a great squad, such a supportive squad that we’ve got such a great feeling [in the camp].
“I can have that role of trying to keep that positive environment around the team and it might not be as impactful as playing well on the pitch but you can definitely play a supportive role in the team environment.
“It was probably tighter than we’d have liked. We knew coming into the game that Wales were going to come out fighting and we needed to match that energy and go toe to toe with them on that front.
“It took us a little bit of a while to match that but at the end of the day it’s tournament hockey and we got the result so we can move on and look forward to India tomorrow now.”
Mazarelo is revelling in his first taste of a multi-sport games and admits to feeling starstruck when spotting household names like swimmer Adam Peaty and heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the athletes’ village.
He added: “It’s fantastic to be involved in a multi-sport event, the first one for me.
“It’s amazing when you see all those famous faces across the dinner hall that you are so used to seeing on TV, even last year in Tokyo.
“It’s one of those things, you are just trying to take it all in for experience and hopefully later down the line I’ll be on the pitch for one of these multi-sport Games more often than I might be this time.
“But ultimately we are here for ourselves and we want to come away with a medal.”
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