Nigel Si­mon

The quin­tet of vice-cap­tain Dwain Quan Chan, Kwand­wane Browne, Wayne Leg­erton, Kiel Mur­ray and Dil­let Gilkes were all on tar­get as this coun­try's se­nior men's hock­ey­men spanked Brazil 5-2 to make a win­ning start to Pool B play at the fourth Pan Amer­i­can Cup, Bramp­ton, Toron­to, Cana­da, yes­ter­day.

The lo­cal squad skip­pered by Dar­ren Cowie was orig­i­nal­ly card­ed to meet Chile in its open­er on Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er due to trav­el de­lays, the T&T Hock­ey Board made a re­quest for a change in fix­ture to the Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey Board, which was agreed too.

The change in fix­tures now sees T&T play­ing Chile on Mon­day along with the Uruguay and USA match af­ter the South Amer­i­cans were de­layed due to se­vere storms which re­sult­ed in their plane be­ing struck by light­ning.

De­spite their late ar­rival in Cana­da, the "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" ad­just­ed well to the spank­ing new sur­face quick­ly and went ahead against the South Amer­i­cans as ear­ly as the third minute through Quan Chan from field goal play be­fore 35-year-old Browne, made it 2-0 in the 29th, in his 288th in­ter­na­tion­al match, hav­ing played in all Pan Amer­i­can com­pe­ti­tions since 1999.

On the re­sump­tion, T&T ranked 30th in the world con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate, but some slop­py de­fen­sive work at the oth­er end al­lowed Brazil to pull a goal back via Bruno Paes in the 45th minute.

How­ev­er, that was as close as the Brazil­ians came as Leg­erton ri­fled home a third from penal­ty-cor­ner play in the 54th fol­lowed by a so­lo ef­fort from Mur­ray in the 59th for a 4-1 cush­ion and Gilkes, with a close range re­bound four min­utes from the fi­nal whis­tle to com­plete T&T's scor­ing. Brazil end­ed the match on a high though, with a last minute penal­ty-cor­ner con­ver­sion from Stephane Vehrle-Smith.

With the win, T&T moved to top spot in the pool ahead of Cana­da, which de­feat­ed the Brazil­ians 3-1 on Sat­ur­day.

Speak­ing af­ter the match, Browne said the team was ex­treme­ly pleased to get the win un­der their belt es­pe­cial­ly see­ing how tough the Brazil­ians played against Cana­da on Sat­ur­day.

He added, "The ear­ly goal by Dwain was key to help­ing us set­tle our nerves and now we have some con­fi­dence to take in­to our next match."

To­day, T&T will play Chile from 5pm fol­lowed by Cana­da to­mor­row at 7pm to end round-robin group play. When the tour­na­ment be­gan on Sat­ur­day, top ranked team Ar­genti­na took ad­van­tage of a young and in­ex­pe­ri­enced Mex­i­can team with a 13-2 tri­umph led by five goals from Fa­cun­do Gal­lioni while it al­so crushed USA 8-0 yes­ter­day for a 2-0 record and max­i­mum six points while Mex­i­co edged Uruguay, 2-1. At the end of the pool round-robin se­ries, the top two teams will ad­vance to the cross-over semi­fi­nals while third and fourth go to semi­fi­nals for fifth to eighth spot ahead of the fi­nal play­offs for bronze and gold. The win­ner of the tour­na­ment qual­i­fies for next year's Men's World Cup in The Hague, Hol­land while the top six teams qual­i­fy for the 2017 Men's Pan Amer­i­can Cup.

Teams placed sev­enth and eight will play in the 2015 Men's Pan Amer­i­can Chal­lenge. Ar­genti­na, ranked tenth in the world has al­ready qual­i­fied for the World Cup af­ter their su­perb per­for­mance at the re­cent FIH World League semi­fi­nal in Jo­hor, Malaysia, where they fin­ished sec­ond to Ger­many, but ahead of Eng­land and Ko­rea.

Tour­na­ment re­sults:

Sat­ur­day:

Pool A: Ar­genti­na 13 (Fa­cun­do Gal­lioni 3rd, 4th, 4th, 56th, 59th, Ma­tias Pare­des 1st, 33rd, Gui­do Bar­reiros 21st, 68th, Lu­cas Vi­la 22nd, Guiller­mo Schick­en­dantz 33rd, own-goal 50th, Le­an­dro Toli­ni 67th) vs Mex­i­co 2 (Ar­ge­nis Gar­cia 52nd, Os­car Ros­ales 59th)

Pool B:

Cana­da 3 (David Jame­son 30th, Matthew Sor­men­to 49th, Kee­gan Pereira 55th) vs Brazil 1 (Ernst Rost 43rd)

Yes­ter­day:

Pool A: Mex­i­co 2 (Guiller­mo Pe­draza 56th, Alex Valdes 62nd) vs Uruguay 1 (Max­im­i­lano Tixe 64th)

Ar­genti­na 8 (Guiller­mo Schick­en­dantz 17th, 50th, Fa­cun­do Gal­lioni 5th, Lu­cas Vi­la 9th, Ma­tias Pare­des 30th, Juan Mar­tin Lopez 42nd, Ma­tias Rey 56th, Pe­dro Ibar­ra 65th) vs USA 0

Pool B: T&T 5 (Dwain Quan Chan 3rd, Kwand­wane Browne 29th, Wayne Leg­erton 54th, Kiel Mur­ray 59th, Dil­let Gilkes 66th) vs Brazil 2 (Bruno Paes 45th, Stephane Vehrle-Smith 70th)

Chile vs Cana­da (late match)

To­day:

Pool A: USA vs Uruguaym, 3 pm

Pool B: Chile vs T&T, 5 pm

Wednes­day:

Pool A: Mex­i­co vs USA, 11am; Ar­genti­na vs Uruguay, 5 pm

Pool B: Brazil vs Chile, 9 am; Cana­da vs T&T, 7 pm

Thurs­day:

5th–8th semi­fi­nals

1st–4th semi­fi­nals

Sat­ur­day:

fi­nal play­offs: