Hockey: Scotland's men face unbeaten France in Champions semi-final

Today the Scots lock horns again with hosts France in one semi-final while the other is contested by Russia and Ireland - ironically all the teams emanating from Pool B.

The format is bizarre, the Scots lost to Ireland, Russia and France and finished with the wooden spoon in the pool competition, meanwhile the Chinese finished undefeated in pole position in their group, but it is Garcia's charges who move on to the medal games while the Asians are consigned to playing for places five to eight.

But Scotland manager Eugene Connolly is not complaining. "This was an absolutely splendid result," he said. "It opens up the whole tournament and playing for a medal takes the pressure off as we've already achieved our objective of finishing in the top four."

The victory over China, ranked 14th in the world and nine places above the Scots, has a wider implication for Scotland according to Connolly. "Playing for medals in the top group will give us crucial world ranking points. Also, this will be excellent preparation for the European Nations Championships in Ukraine next month, and it shows that Scottish hockey is on the up.

"In addition, we want to do as well as the Scotland girls, who grabbed the bronze medal in their Champions Challenge tournament last month, or perhaps even do better,"

Like Scotland's women, whose ranking recently went up from 21st to 17th, the men's status of 23rd has been shown to be artificially low. The United States, Austria and China are all above the Scots on the international ladder and they will be fighting it out for the lower placings in Lille. Also, this has been achieved with six squad players short, in particular Olympians Niall Stott and Stephen Dick, who are committed to Great Britain in the elite Champions Trophy in Delhi next December.

Getting to tomorrow's final will mean seeing off France on their own soil. The hosts are unbeaten so far in the competition, but they only beat Austria in a penalty shoot-out in their quarter-final on Thursday after the teams were tied at 2-2 in normal time. The Scots lost 3-2 to France in their pool encounter. Fergus Dunn provided a first-half lead but three consecutive goals after the interval knocked the stuffing out of the Scots, although Dan Coultas provided a late consolation from a penalty corner.

So how does Connolly propose to turn defeat into victory today. "Simply, we need to score more goals and concede less," he said.

"After taking the lead against France, we let them back into the game with some slack defending. This time we must keep control if we get ahead and not give them opportunities to get back at us."Restricting the high-flying Chinese to a single early goal is perhaps a sign that the defence department is now demonstrating greater composure.

The rearguard of Willie Marshall, Graham Moodie and Coultas easily contained a Chinese attack that desperately sought to get back into the contest, and a sign of their success was that Scottish goalkeeper Mark Fulton was rarely called into action in the closing 25 minutes.

Connolly remarked: "There is a very happy mood in the squad, we have no injury issues, now we must re-focus our endeavours to get a win against France in today's semi-final."

Meanwhile, the Scotland under 18 men's squad head to Italy this weekend for the EuroHockey Youth Championship in Milan next week.

The Scots youngsters, coached by former Olympian Graham Dunlop, are seeking promotion back into the elite A-Division and are up against hosts Italy, Austria and Ukraine in the pool competition.

To achieve this aim, the Scots must come in the top two in their pool, and then win the crucial semi-final tie to gain one of the two promotion spots.