David Chappell

From David Chappell in Sydney

Advance Australia fair. After Ian Thorpe and Cathy Freeman had captured the nation’s attention, Australia’s favourite Olympic team - the Hockeyroos - proved themselves the fairest of them all here tonight. To rapturous acclaim Australia beat Argentina 3-1 to take gold for the second successive Games and confirm themselves as the finest women’s hockey team ever.

Ric Charlesworth, the Australia coach, has spent seven years moulding this exceptional team and as they embarked on a lap of honour to the strains of Waltzing Matilda he waited patiently, camera in hand, to capture their historic moment. They are the first women’s team to defend the Olympic title successfully and this was their third gold medal in four Games.

All the attributes of Charlesworth’s side - fleetness of foot, swift passing, quick wits and wonderful athleticism - were on show for the capacity 15,000 crowd and from the first whistle it was a question only of their winning margin. Alyson Annan put them in front after ten minutes, Juliet Haslam got a second and when Jenny Morris converted a short corner two minutes into the second half the Argentinians were facing a rout.

To their credit they made a game of it, replying swiftly through Vanina Oneto and forcing several short corners through the skills of Karina Masotta and Luciana Aymar. But they were indebted to their goalkeeper, Mariela Antoniska, who defied Morris in particular in a stream of short corners as Australia surged towards victory. The only surprise was that their much-vaunted forwards did not score, Nikki Hudson still finishing as the tournament’s leading scorer with six.

At the end Rechelle Hawkes, whose record third gold medal this is, threw her stick into the crowd to provide a valuable collector’s item.

Charlesworth retires with his job brilliantly done. The Hockeyroos, under the weight of home expectation, have got better and better through this tournament, in which they won seven of their eight matches scoring 25 goals. Only Spain managed to hold them to a draw.

In 253 matches under his guidance, Australia have won 198 and lost just 30. Successive World Cups and now Olympic titles are just reward. Holland took the bronze medal by beating Spain 2-0 but all anybody cared about last night was gold - green and gold.