Author: awcsportjourno

From October 2021 onwards I undertook some placement work with Pontypridd RFC. I have always said throughout that when I graduate I would like to work as a written journalist rather than work for a clubs media team but I thought this would be a beneficial opportunity to get some further placement hours and experience something different to make myself more employable. The opportunity came about through Pontypridd RFC’s link with the University of South Wales. Head of media at the club Geraint Thomas was keen for one or two students to come on board and help the club. Myself and Zacharie Johnson-Pillion obliged and a meeting was arranged. 

During my placement at Pontypridd RFC I was given the opportunity to host my own radio show – The Ponty Rugby Show on GTFM. This was a new experience and something completely out of my comfort zone. It was a daunting prospect but I realised having the chance to host my own radio show was an opportunity that I couldn’t turn down. 

From hosting my own radio show I learnt how the broadcast industry works and got to improve my interviewing skills. This was a great way to increase my confidence and throughout my time hosting the radio show I think the shows improved week on week. When I began the show I would come up with around six or seven questions to try and make it a 10/15minute show but it soon become apparent that this was no where near long enough. To combat that this I began coming up with around 12 questions per show and subsequently the shows become far longer. 

I received positive feedback from GTFM station manager Terry Mann and I really enjoyed being given this opportunity. I feel as if this placement improved me as a journalist as I learnt how to write strong questions and improved as an interviewer.

In the middle of March 2022, I undertook a two week attachment with Dai Sport. Having already produced several pieces of work for the site already, Graham Thomas offered me the chance to work for the site on an attachment period as part of my placement module. This placement offered me the chance to make up the remainder of my 120 hours and enabled me to see how running a professional sports news outlet works. I believed that this placement would be very beneficial to me as I it would offer me the chance to produce more written pieces and offer me the chance to attend press conferences/sport fixtures.

Throughout this placement I shadowed Graham to get the full experience of how a professional sports journalist operates. I attended two EFL Championship fixtures and got to learn what life is like for club correspondents, journalists working for companies like BBC and freelancers working at the games. 

I did player ratings for the first time and got to learn how Graham writes different match reports for different outlets on the same game. I also learnt how to edit, and then post work from other people onto the Dai Sport site. This is something I had never done before and it was good to read work from the point of view of an editor. 

Throughout my time with Dai Sport I received feed back and was told how to improve and I believe that my work for Dai Sport improved significantly throughout my time there. This placement was an ideal opportunity to become a better sports journalist and I have learnt things that will help me to prosper when I graduate. 

Personally, I think this placement was probably the most beneficial I undertook as by shadowing Graham Thomas I was able to learn how he manages to run a successful website whilst also doing freelance work for Westgate Sport agency. I also picked up some useful interview technique tips that will help me in the future.

At the end of November I undertook a week long placement with WalesOnline working on the sports desk. I arranged the placement by emailing Jon Doel who is head of sport at WalesOnline before arranging dates for me to come in and undertake a placement. I was keen to experience a placement with WalesOnline as it was a good way to get 40 hours of placement in and experience what a week as a sports journalists looks like. It was also a good way to get my name out there with some bylines and finally when I graduate and go into the world of work I would like to work for an organisation like WalesOnline as a rugby/football correspondent so it was a perfect opportunity to see how things operate. 

Throughout my placement I got to learn how sports journalism continues to operate following the pandemic. My time with WalesOnline was balanced between working from home and going into the office. 

During my time on placement I experienced what a normal week looks like for a sports journalist. I learnt how sports journalists have had to use Zoom for press conferences and how the industry has changed as a result of the pandemic. 

I learnt how news gathering for a professional sports journalist works and how stories are put together in the news room. I got to experience this first hand when I got the chance to put a story together myself for it to be published on the site. 

I also came to understand how important social media, particularly Twitter is for sports journalists as we regularly scrolled through Twitter on the hunt for potential stories. During this placement I received regular feedback regarding my work and I believe that this placement was very beneficial for me. 

To summarise, during this placement I learnt a lot about how the industry has changed during the pandemic and learnt how important social media is for a modern day sports journalist.

I recently began my first placement with Dai Sport, a Welsh sporting website run by Graham Thomas. I decided I wanted to go on placement with Dai Sport as when I graduate I want to work as a written journalist, producing content similar to what is produced on the Dai Sport website. Also, Graham Thomas is one of the most well respected journalists in the country and the opportunities that this placement provided were very appealing to me and I felt they could stand me in good stead for when I graduate. 

I wrote my first piece for Dai Sport about Wales qualifying for the Hockey World Cup. I wrote this as I had attended the qualifying tournament and Graham believed it would make a nice piece on the site. I got in touch with the Hockey Wales press officer and she put me in touch with the chief executive of Hockey Wales and captain, Lewis Prosser. 

I sent both of them the questions via email and they responded through email. Doing this piece of work has taught me that interviewing people via email isn’t a good way to do it as you’re unable to ask follow up questions and that the responses you receive are normally quite bland and repetitive. As this was my first piece on placement for Dai Sport I have noted that in future I will always make an effort to interview people via phonecall/zoom or in person. This is because you build a bond with your interviewee and you’re more likely to receive better answers and can subsequently come up with better follow up questions. 

I believe that by doing my interviews via email it didn’t allow this piece of work to reach it’s full potential which it would have done with better quotes. 

However, I will learn from my mistake and ensure all future interviews are conducted face to face or over the phone.

From October 2021 onwards I undertook some placement work with Pontypridd RFC. I have always said throughout that when I graduate I would like to work as a written journalist rather than work for a clubs media team but I thought this would be a beneficial opportunity to get some further placement hours and experience something different to make myself more employable. The opportunity came about through Pontypridd RFC’s link with the University of South Wales. Head of media at the club Geraint Thomas was keen for one or two students to come on board and help the club. Myself and Zacharie Johnson-Pillion obliged and a meeting was arranged. 

Myself, Zach and course leader Delme met with Geraint and head coach Justin Burnell to discuss the plans and what we could bring to the table. We talked about how we could improve the media team and Geraint was happy to get us involved. We were tasked with attending games to write match reports for the club and this was something I was happy to do as it tied in nicely with the work I was already doing with the Welsh Premiership Podcast. 

At the end of November I attended my first game and wrote my first match report for the club. Throughout the duration of the season I continued to attend as many games as possible for the club writing match reports and covering the team. I made my own way to most away fixtures and I even travelled on the team coach to Llandovery for an away fixture. This was a good way to get to know the players, coaching staff and the committee and chairman. I was really made to feel like part of the club and this gave me a good insight as to what working for a club media team full time would feel like. 

As well as producing match reports for the club I was also asked to host the club’s radio show on local valleys radio station – GTFM. Initially I was reluctant to host the radio show as it was definitely something out of my comfort zone and I wasn’t sure whether I’d have what it takes. However the club were keen for me to do it and after having a chat with Terry Mann who is the GTFM station manager I decided it would be a good experience and could stand me in good stead for the future. 

Since the beginning of February to the end of April when the season finished I have produced a radio show every week for it to go out on Wednesday evening. I have had a range of different players on and finished with an interview with the team manager to round up the season. I interview the players via Zoom before saving the audio and then sending it over to Terry. 

Throughout doing my radio show I have experienced some difficulties as a journalistic and subsequently had to overcome them. The radio show has no set time frame but it must be shorter than 25 minutes. Prior to my first show I prepared ten questions for Pontypridd captain Kristian Parker, and despite asking all ten questions the interview only lasted around six to seven minutes. This was a bit of naivety of my part as the Pontypridd players aren’t media trained and don’t answer questions like professional players would so I was receiving short answers to my questions. To combat this, I began asking more open ended questions and asking 13 to 15 questions per interview to get better answers and make the show longer. Since doing this the interviews have been lasting around 12-15minutes so this shows I have learnt a lot and improved as a journalist since hosting my own radio show. 

In total I have covered eight Pontypridd RFC games this season and I believe that my match reports got better with each game I covered. I felt as if this placement was a great opportunity to hone my match report writing skills, a crucial skill for all sports journalists and I feel as if I have improved throughout. This placement also offered me a fantastic opportunity to build contacts and I have managed to get numbers for a lot of the players and coaching staff which may come in handy for story gathering in the future. Having the opportunity at Pontypridd has shown me how crucial contacts are in the industry and has given me a glimpse at what working for a club media team could be like. 

I really enjoyed my experience working for a club’s media team however I still want to work for an organisation as a written journalist/reporter in the future. In that sense, this placement has been very beneficial as it has given me further clarity on what I would like to do in the future. I believe that by doing this placement I have further increased my chances of being employed as I have shown that I also have the tools to work in a media team. Throughout all three of my placements with Wales Online, DaiSport and Pontypridd RFC I have learnt a lot about the sports journalism industry that has helped me to improve as a journalist. All three placements have taught me different things. 

My placement with WalesOnline was a great way to understand how a sports desk works in a news room. I learnt how journalists communicate and look to find stories and how the editor will allocate/recommend stories to other journalists in the news room. I also learnt how sports journalists work from home and how the pandemic has affected how sports journalists work. 

My placement with DaiSport was a lot more hands on and I did a lot of practical work. For the two weeks I was with Dai Sport I basically shadowed Graham Thomas whilst contributing to the site. This placement showed me how much work a professional sports journalist gets through and the rigours of the job. This placement was great as it allowed me to get out and about, attending games and press conferences. I really felt like a professional sports journalist during this placement and I got to see how things operated on a match day and through the mid week press conferences. 

Finally, my placement with Pontypridd RFC offered me the opportunity to experience a completely different aspect of sports journalism and to understand how a semi professional club’s media team operate. As well as getting the chance to master the art of match reporting, the opportunity to host my own radio show was very beneficial. Not only did hosting my radio show improve my interview skills, but it made me a more confident journalist and helped me to build contacts. Being a good interviewer is one of the most important skills in sports journalism and I genuinely believe there is a marked difference between my first radio show and my last radio show. This show really helped me to get my name out there as my interviews were broadcast on a radio show weekly. This was a fantastic experience and the things I have learnt from hosting this show will go a long way in the future. To summarise, all three placements have been really beneficial and I have learnt different things from all three helping me to become a better, more rounded sports journalist.

In the middle of March 2022, I undertook a two week attachment with Dai Sport. Having already produced several pieces of work for the site already, Graham Thomas offered me the chance to work for the site on an attachment period as part of my placement module. This placement offered me the chance to make up the remainder of my 120 hours and enabled me to see how running a professional sports news outlet works. I believed that this placement would be very beneficial to me as I it would offer me the chance to produce more written pieces and offer me the chance to attend press conferences/sport fixtures.

I began my placement on the 14th March with a Microsoft Teams call meeting with Graham. Graham began by explaining how the placement would work and what I would be doing. We bang by looking at how the website works in terms of publishing work. He showed how work that has been sent to him could be uploaded onto the site. This was interesting as it showed how much editing and work Graham has to do to get the work up on the website. After an hour or two of showing me how the website works, Graham began to send me work to put on site. This was a good experience as I learnt how professional sites work and it was a beneficial experience for me proof-reading work, editing work and making sure they’re properly structured to go on site. I also learnt about copyright issues surrounding using photos online and this experience taught me how careful editors need to be when publishing work. 

My second day of attachment with Dai Sport saw me travel to Jenner Park in Barry for a National Lottery event where blind football coach Chloe McBratney met her idol Karen Carney OBE. FAW Chief Executive Noel Mooney was also in attendance so Graham wanted me to go down and source some interviews. I met up with Tom Prosser who is on a kick back scheme with Dai Sport and we were in on interviews with Noel Mooney and Karen Carney. This was a hugely beneficial experience as we got to meet the most influential man in Welsh Football and an English football legend. I also got to see how experienced sports journalists such as Gareth Vincent and Phil Blanche operate and it was fascinating to see how they tried to squeeze answers out of Noel Mooney about Wales’ upcoming qualifying games. After that, myself and Tom interviewed Chloe McBratney about coaching a football side whilst blind and I also interviewed Barry Town United manager, Gavin Chesterfield. All in all, I learnt a lot on this day about how journalists can use PR days such as this to find interesting stories and talk to people they wouldn’t usually talk to. 

Later that day I went on the Wales rugby press conference where head coach and captain, Wayne Pivac and Dan Biggar had been put up for interviews. From this I learnt what sort of questions are asked and learnt what the best techniques were to get better answers.

My third day of placement saw me attend Cardiff City vs Stoke City with Graham as a member of the press. This was a great experience for me as I was missing with journalists like Glenn Williams and Micheal Pearlman in the press room before hand which helps me to get my name out there and it’s a good opportunity to see how other journalists work. Graham was writing two match reports for two different news papers and asked me to do the player ratings. This was something I had never done before so it was another chance to broaden my horizons. After the game, we went to the press conference where I was tasked with writing a quotes piece for the DaiSport site. It was interesting attending a press conference and seeing how it works with the BBC going first, WalesOnline going next and then the questions being open to anyone. I took some advice from Graham about asking questions and it was very interesting to watch how he changed the subject at will to get the answers he wanted from Micheal O’Neil.

Thursday saw me write up my quotes piece from the following nights press conference. I had to find the best angle from the press conference and I decided on choosing Steve Morison talking about his sides next game which was against bitter rivals Swansea. I was given a deadline of 12pm the following morning as Graham told me that it would be pointless running the story if it went out any later than that as the other sites would have covered it. This emphasised to me how important it is for sports journalists to get their work done as soon as possible. 

My next day with Dai Sport was Saturday 19th March where I went to Swansea City vs Birmingham City as a member of the press. As Graham wasn’t attending he put me in contact with Andrew Penman who was working for Westgate Sport so that I could shadow him. This was another good learning experience as I got to see how a freelance journalist operates and it was great for me to learn from him. As I had done previously, I did the player ratings and star man for the newspapers Andrew was writing for. Following the game, I attended both Russell Martin’s and Lee Bowyer’s press conferences and wrote a transcript for Andrew to use. I wrote the transcript in the press room immediately after the press conferences, and tried to ensure that I got it done quickly so Andrew could use it. I’d never done a transcript immediately after a press conference like that and it was a good learning curve seeing the demands professional sports journalists are put through. After getting home from the game on Saturday evening I immediately wrote my post match quotes piece and put it on the site ready to be posted first thing Sunday morning. 

My next week saw me attending numerous press conferences and editing/posting work ready to go on the site. I attended Steve Morison’s press conference on the Monday before going to Wales football’s press conference with Neco Williams and Brennan Johnson. The final press conference I attended was the Bulls rugby team from South Africa. This is because Graham was writing a piece for S4c ahead of their upcoming game against the Dragons. Attending all three of these games gave me the chance to see how different journalists from different sports operate. The rest of my placement saw me continuing to edit work which made me a better journalist as I was able to learn from other people’s mistakes. 

To summarise, my attachment period at DaiSport was very beneficial to me as a sports journalist. I learnt a lot of new things such as how to post work onto an official website, new interview techniques and got to see how professional sports journalists operate at matches and at press conferences. During this placement I think my writing improved as did my interview skills. I also got to shadow professional journalists who I learnt a lot from. I think this placement will stand me in great stead for the future.

At the end of November I undertook a week long placement with WalesOnline working on the sports desk. I arranged the placement by emailing Jon Doel who is head of sport at WalesOnline before arranging dates for me to come in and undertake a placement. I was keen to experience a placement with WalesOnline as it was a good way to get 40 hours of placement in and experience what a week as a sports journalists looks like. It was also a good way to get my name out there with some bylines and finally when I graduate and go into the world of work I would like to work for an organisation like WalesOnline as a rugby/football correspondent so it was a perfect opportunity to see how things operate. 

The placement was balanced between online and in person, as per WalesOnline protocol at the time. Going in to the office enabled me to understand how the office environment worked and enabled me to meet some of the other sports journalists who’s work I’ve been reading for years like Simon Thomas. This was a good experience and showed me that if I worked hard then I could be sitting there in a few years time. Working from home was a little bit more difficult as I was set stricter deadlines and just a little bit more inconvenient as unlike being in an office environment I couldn’t ask questions and receive an immediate answer. However, many organisations are still operating like this in the wake of the pandemic and the lockdowns so it was useful experience as it showed what it was like to work from home as a sports journalist. 

I worked from home on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday whilst I was in the office on Tuesday and Friday. When working from home I was sent work via email to complete and then given a deadline, an example of similar previous pieces and a brief of how many words I should look to include. The pieces I was assigned were reasonably basic and just consisted of rehashing stories that had previously gone out or stories similar to what other outlets had run. This was a nice way of easing myself in and gave me the opportunity to get some bylines on Wales’ national news site. 

As Wales had just finished their autumn campaign the previous weekend there was plenty of rugby news to write about and I began by writing about where Wales found themselves in the World Rugby rankings. This was an easy piece to write as I was sent a piece that was written the previous weekend about the rankings so I had a structure to follow and I just had to change some some little bits to it. That afternoon, I wrote a piece about how Wales’ squad was looking following the autumn campaign and what players were injured and likely to miss the Six Nations. Again, I was sent a piece that had been done before the autumn campaign so I had a structure to follow, I just had to include players that had injured themselves in the autumn. This involved me doing my own research to find out who was injured and then subsequently find out how long they were injured for to determine whether they were likely to miss the Six Nations campaign. That was the end of my first day on placement and showed how working remotely works with WalesOnline. 

My second day on placement saw myself go into the WalesOnline offices for the first time. This was a nerve-racking experience at first but I was treated like a full time member of staff and had to dress wearing a shirt and smart trousers whilst in the offices. Again, this was important as the placement not only helped me to improve as a journalist but enabled me to experience what the office etiquette is and showed me what level of professionalism is required. My first piece of work in the office was a piece on how the betting odds were looking for Wales’ Six Nations chances. Jon sent me a piece that had been done the previous year which acted as a template for my piece. I just had to conduct my own research by looking at the betting sites and then use that information. I also had a go at writing my own piece, I wrote a review of Wales Women’s autumn campaign and looked ahead to their upcoming Six Nations campaign and World Cup. I conducted my own research and tried to make it informative as possible. However, it wasn’t published which suggests that it either wasn’t good enough or wasn’t relevant enough. In hindsight, I’d agree that it wasn’t relevant enough as it was neither a review, preview or story. This showed that my story gathering probably needs to improve if I’m to come up with stories good enough for WalesOnline. I also appreciate that WalesOnline is very viewer and click orientated and that my story wouldn’t demand the readership that most WalesOnline stories would. 

On the Wednesday I was back to working from home, I was given two pieces to write throughout the day. The first of these was a piece about Wales Six Nations fixtures where I had looked ahead to Wales Six Nations campaign and wrote about each fixture, the kick off time, the TV channel and a little bit of background about the fixture. Again I was sent a template of how to write the piece and I just had to research the fixtures for myself. In the afternoon I was assigned another piece of work which was to write about every URC, Gallagher Premiership and Allianz Women’s Premier 15’s game taking place on the upcoming weekend and talk about the kick off time, TV channel and write a few lines about the game as a mini-preview. This piece needed a lot of research and was quite time consuming but was an enjoyable piece to put together. 

Thursday saw my last day working at home and was one of my busiest days. I began by rehashing a piece written about Gareth Bale by one of the nationals before attending the Dragons press conference via zoom. I was told I was to write a piece from the press conference and take the best angle. Head coach Dean Ryan was up first where he announced a new contract for Taine Basham before Basham himself was up. I wrote a piece about Basham’s new deal and included quotes from both Ryan and Basham taking the angle of how much he’d improved. This was probably my best piece and featured in the newspaper the following day. Finally, I was told to listen to a podcast with former Cardiff defender Ben Turner and then write a transcript. I had never written a transcript before so this was something new and from the transcript I then wrote a piece around it. 

My final day in the office saw me write a preview for the Barbarians vs Samoa game, a preview to the FIFA world cup draw and finally I wrote a piece from one of my own ideas which was published. The piece was a preview piece to the Welsh Premiership Cup and I was pleased that one of my own ideas was published on the site. 

From my week long placement at WalesOnline I learnt a lot of things. I learnt the importance of making stories enticing for viewers, I learnt how to write a transcript and I got to experience a newsroom for the first time. By mixing with other professional sports journalists I learnt a lot about the industry and I think this placement will stand me in good stead for the future.

I recently began my first placement with Dai Sport, a welsh sporting website run by Graham Thomas. I decided I wanted to go on placement with Dai Sport as when I graduate I want to work as a written journalist, producing content similar to what is produced on the Dai Sport website. Also, Graham Thomas is one of the most well respected journalists in the country and the opportunities that this placement provided were very appealing to me and I felt they could stand me in good stead for when I graduate. 

After conducting some research on their website, I noticed it said that Dai Sport were willing to take on aspiring journalists to give them experience and to give them a taste of what is required to make it in the industry. There were conduct details for Graham Thomas along with this so I emailed Graham to enquire about some work experience. He got back to me and we had a 20 minute phone call where we discussed how this placement could benefit me as a journalist and we discussed a two week attachment period which would be completed later in the year. 

During my phone call with Graham I explained I had undertook some placement work in the previous week during the Hockey World Cup qualifiers which took place in Sophia Gardens where I wrote match reports, interviewed players and provided live tweets from the event. As a result of this Graham wanted me to conduct an interview with the captain of the Welsh hockey team and the CEO of Hockey Wales to do a feature piece on Wales qualifying for the Hockey World Cup for the first time in their history. 

I contacted the press officer for the national hockey side who I had met the week earlier and she put me in contact with the CEO Ria Burrage-Male and their captain, Lewis Prosser. Both of them said they wanted to be interviewed via email rather than a phone call so I emailed them the questions and they replied via email. I feel as if this had a negative impact on my work as I was unable to ask follow up questions and couldn’t delve deeper into the topic. The answers I received were good enough to write a story but probably lacked a little bit of cutting edge so I definitely think that I could have done with conducting the interviews via zoom/phone call to forge a better relationship with the interviewee and then subsequently get better answers. However, it was a good learning experience speaking to someone from a sport I don’t know much about and expanding my sporting knowledge. 

When I wrote the article I found the best line from the interview, this came from the CEO where she discussed how a lack of funding meant that the association would have to raise money themselves to found their trip to India for the World Cup. Again, this was another good learning experience as I had to go through all of my quotes to find the best quote so that I could base my whole story around that. I led with that and talked about the financial implications qualifying for the World Cup had on the association before focussing on the playing side later in the story where I included quotes from Lewis Prosser. I thought that this would be the best way to structure it as this story was a follow on story from them qualifying for the Hockey World Cup rather than an immediate reaction piece from the playing side of things. 

After writing the story I sent it to Graham and he gave me quite a bit of feedback which I have subsequently taken on board. Firstly he told me that in the industry copy is sent over via email so could be copy and pasted on to the website. I had put my work onto a word document and sent it over as a PDF. Graham advised me not to this in future as it made life unnecessarily difficult for the recipient. In terms of the actual written piece he said it a well written, professional piece of work which was nicely structured and accurate. 

However, Graham gave me further advice on how to improve my work for future pieces. Firstly he explained that not everybody knows what a “CEO” is and that I should use the term ‘chief executive’ in future. He also recommended that I locate Sophia Gardens as some people may not be aware that it is in Cardiff. The other housekeeping advice I was given is that the numbers 1 to 9 should be written out like “one, two” etc and from ten onwards they can be written as a number. 

In terms of the actual journalistic advice, I was told that I should include more meaningful detail. This ties in with what I said previously about not delving deeper into the answers I was being given as I conducted by interviews via email. The advice I was given is that I should have asked how many attempts it’s taken Wales to qualify to give the reader some perspective on their achievements and that I should have asked the chief executive how much money they receive from Sport Wales and how much they needed to raise before going to the World Cup. Graham explained to me that asking these sort of hard hitting informative questions is this difference between good journalism and bland corporate PR content. 

From this piece of work on placement I have learnt a lot about how to improve as a sports journalist. I have learnt that conducting interviews via email isn’t the best way to get good answers from people and doesn’t allow follow up questions from potentially interesting answers. In future, I will make more of an effort to ensure I conduct interviews via zoom, or a phone call as not only will I receive better answers but I will also increase my confidence as a journalist. This is something else that needs improving as becoming a more confident journalist will enable me to speak to more people, ask better questions and subsequently get better stories. 

I also took further learnings on how to structure my stories and I will use the advice Graham gave me about writing numbers as I look to improve throughout my placement with Dai Sport. 

To summarise, I believe that this first piece of work with Dai Sport has shown me where I need to improve as a journalist and will stand me in good stead for the rest of my placements. I’ve taken some significant learnings from writing this piece and now where I need to improve in the future. As mentioned throughout, the main learning I have taken is to make more of an effort to arrange interviews where I can talk to the interviewee instead of doing it online. This is something I have noted and now know not to make the mistake again. It was an enjoyable piece of work to put together and I’m looking forward to writing more pieces for Dai Sport using this piece as a learning curve before producing better quality pieces of work.

Scotland progressed to Sunday’s fifth place final after a classy display saw them cruise 10-2 past Poland.

Poland were awarded a penalty corner early on in the first quarter and captain Jacek Kurowski made no mistake in putting the Poles ahead.

Poland’s tails were up and they came close to doubling their advantage when Gracjan Jarzyński forced Scottish keeper Thomas Alexander into a fine save.

Scotland hit back and levelled the game when the ball fell to Struan Walker who made no mistake from close range and fired past Mateusz Popiołkowski.

The momentum was with Scotland and they took the lead when skipper Alan Forsyth dribbled past the defender and saw his powerful shot beat Popiołkowski.

At the end of the first quarter Scotland were awarded a penalty corner but they failed to capitalise and the ball was blocked away.

The second quarter started in similar circumstances to end of the first as the Scots were awarded a penalty corner. An infringement from the corner saw Scotland awarded a penalty stroke, Forsyth made no mistake from the spot.

Scotland were awarded yet another penalty corner after Kenny Bain’s tackle saw the Scots break forward however they were unable to capitalise.

That saw the end of the action in the second quarter with Scotland leading 3-1.

The third quarter began in a similar vain and Scotland missed yet another opportunity from a penalty corner.

Scotland finally scored from a penalty corner when Dan Coultas slotted past Popiołowski in the Polish goal.

The Scots were well and truly in the ascendancy and added a 5th when Duncan Riddell tapped home from close range.

Scotland got their 6th of the afternoon when Andy Bull managed to convert from yet another penalty corner.

Scotland were running away with it and they got their 7th of the game when Cameron Golden got a goal.

It was number eight for Scotland when Andy McConnell got his first of the afternoon.

Poland’s ill discipline once again let them down and Golden converted from another penalty corner to take them 9-1 in front.

It was double figures for Scotland when Walker grabbed his second of the game to really rub salt in the Polish wounds.

Poland, to their credit ended the scoring when Mikołoj Gumny grabbed a consolation, making the full time score 10-2 in favour of the Scots.

Scotland will now move on to the fifth place final while Poland will play in seventh place final, both of these games will take place on Sunday.

Austria sealed their place in the Semi Finals where they’ll take on France after a 3-2 win on shuffles after the 60 minutes finished 0-0.

Austria started brightly and forced Scotland goalkeeper Thomas Alexander into a few early saves which he dealt with comfortably.

Late in the first quarter Scotland were awarded a penalty corner but an incredible block on the line saw the ball deflected over and kept the game level at 0-0.

Scotland were awarded another penalty corner on the stroke of the buzzer but they failed to capitalise again and the teams went in with the deadlock yet to be broken.

In the second quarter Scotland were awarded their third penalty corner of the game. Again, they failed to capitalise as some good work from the Austrian defence saw it blocked and cleared away.

The rest of the second quarter saw both teams get into good areas but were unable to get the elusive first goal.

The third quarter began in the same manner as the previous with both teams struggling to create chances, another Scotland penalty corner failed to result in a goal.

The third quarter ended with both teams level at 0-0. The teams being unable to break down each other’s resolute defences.

Austria were awarded a penalty corner in the final quarter but they were unable to break the deadlock as the shot was dragged wide.

Both teams had men yellow carded late in the final quarter as Xaver Hasun and Callum Mackenzie clashed as tempers flared.

The 60 minutes finished as a 0-0 stalemate which meant the game would be decided by shuffles.

Austria raced into a 2-0 lead, but some resilient Scottish play saw them go level at 2-2. However it was Austria who came out on top when they converted the final penalty stroke which meant they came out as 3-2 victors.