Second match of Day 3 started at high speed and Scotland, buoyed by the wonderful bagpipe version of “Flower of Scotland”, were on the score sheet within one minute of play by Alan Forsyth! They nearly doubled their tally soon after by Nicholas Parkes, but his reverse stick shot flew just high of goal.

Poland seemed to struggle to settle down and the Scots continued their relentless efforts, forcing Lukasz Domachowski in the Polish goal to stand tall on two shots from close range in quick succession. Once again, it was Dariusz Rachwalski who shook up the Polish troops; after anchoring the defense when it was under pressure, he forced a penalty-corner at the other end after a long run on the right, and Michal Nowakowski slotted a powerful shot under the crossbar to tie the score.

Play became more balanced, flowing quickly back and forth, but no more goals were scored… until the final second of the period, when Scotland capitalized on a penalty-corner with a low shot by Wei Adams, for a narrow, but deserved, lead going into the break (2-1).

Poland started second period determined to come back level promptly, and did just that: after a free hit played quickly, Dariusz Rachwalski left no chance to James Cachia in the Scottish goal with a quick reverse stick shot. With teams back on par, Poland progressively took a slight control of play, creating more dangerous chances than their opponents. They were rewarded in the 57th minute when Krystian Makowski found the ball in a dense scramble in the circle and managed to push it in goal.

But Scotland were not done yet: they forced two penalty-corners, then a penalty-stroke, and Niall Stott did not miss the opportunity to level the score once again at 3-3. Both teams threw caution to the wind in the final minutes of play to try and break the deadlock, but to no avail, and the crowd was treated to a series a shoot-outs for the first time in this competition.

Scotland had the possibility to win in the first series of 5 shoot-outs, but Poland forced the contest into sudden-death fort a dramatic final, when Scotland finally prevailed, earning the 2 points of the “win-draw”.