Jamie Dwyer's early strike has helped the Australian men's hockey team beat New Zealand 3-1 in their second pool match of the Oceania Cup in Stratford, New Zealand on Thursday.
In Joel Carrol's 100th appearance for Australia, Dwyer put the Kookaburras on the scoreboard 20 seconds after the opening whistle.
It took until the second half for the world No.1 Australia side to score again and after 51 minutes, Tom Craig found himself in the right place at the right time, getting a last minute deflection into the back of the net for a 2-0 lead.
Five minutes from the final siren, New Zealand forward Hugo Inglis scored a field-goal for the world No.7 Black Sticks.
Two minutes later, Australia restored their two-goal lead when Glenn Turner flicked the ball into the bottom left of the goal, sealing the Kookaburras a 3-1 win.
Australia coach Paul Gaudoin said he was pleased with the outing.
"This is the first part of two important matches for us here and we tried to focus on getting ourselves a solid game," Gaudoin said.
"Our ball handling was better and we improved on a few technical areas today.
"I think our younger guys performed reasonably well and our senior guys led by example.
"I'm not satisfied with our performance yet, as I think there's still areas we want to continue to improve on, however, getting two quality matches is important and I think they are relishing that opportunity."
The Kookaburras meet Samoa on Saturday in their final pool match of the Oceania Cup before the finals on Sunday.
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