Ranchi Royals\u2019 captain Tom Boon celebrated his 36th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday in style as he scored a magnificent hat-trick to avenge his side\u2019s defeat to Hyderabad Toofans with a thrilling 3-2 win in Qualifier 2 and take it to the Hockey India League final at the Kalinga Stadium here on Sunday.<\/p>\n Royals will meet Vedanta Kalinga Lancers once again in the Republic Day title clash on Monday.<\/p>\n Toofans seized initiative by striking home in the fifth minute. The agile Rajinder Singh entered from the right and perfectly passed it on to an unmarked Jacob Anderson with a reverse stick from a crowded circle. The Australian completed the formalities.<\/p>\n As end-to-end hockey enhanced the excitement, Royals\u00a0enterprising forwards\u2019 first big attempt was wasted.<\/p>\n However, they did not have to wait much. Their second penalty corner got converted into a penalty stroke and Boon sent goalkeeper Jean-Paul Danneberg the other way to draw parity in the 13th minute.<\/p>\n At the stroke of the first quarter, Royals earned another short corner and Boon\u2019s deceptive, angled and low flick beat Danneberg on the right to put the green shirts ahead.<\/p>\n Both sides earned a short corner apiece in the second period but Toofans maintained pressure on the Royals post. With Michel Struthoff and Zach Wallace playing crucial roles, Toofans\u2019 doggedness got them three penalty corners and Amandeep Ekka closed the gap with an effortless conversion.<\/p>\n Toofans, who missed Struthoff for most of the fourth quarter due to an injury, pulled out Dannerberg with more than three minutes left, but to no avail.<\/p>\n Royals got enough reasons to celebrate the birthday of Boon and Mandeep Singh.<\/p>\n The result:<\/b> Ranchi Royals 3 (Tom Boon 13-ps, 15-pc, 34-pc) bt Hyderabad Toofans 2 (Jacob Anderson 5, Amandeep Ekka 38-pc).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published – January 25, 2026 11:16 pm IST<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thehindu.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ranchi Royals players celebrate after Tom Boon scored the second goal against Hyderabad Toofans. | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT Ranchi Royals\u2019 captain Tom Boon celebrated his 36th\u00a0birthday in style as he scored a magnificent hat-trick to avenge his side\u2019s defeat to Hyderabad Toofans with a thrilling 3-2 win in Qualifier 2 and take it to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2250097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2250096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Boons-trick-powers-Royals-into-the-final.JPG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2250096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250098,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250096\/revisions\/2250098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2250097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nEarly into the second half, Royals earned another penalty corner through a successful video referral and Boon shot through the first rusher\u2019s legs to find the mark expertly. He achieved his hat-trick and tightened the Royals\u2019 grip over the contest.<\/p>\n