KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand women's soccer team conceded an early goal and later lost their goalkeeper when going down 0-2 to Canada in the Peace Queen Cup tournament in Korea last night.
The shock of a goal in the first minute to Christine Sinclair was topped by a red card for reserve goalkeeper Rachel Howard shortly after she came on as a halftime replacement for Jenny Bindon.
In just her second international, defender Kristy Hill was forced to don a borrowed pair of gloves and finish the game in goal.
That she only conceded the resulting Kara Lang penalty was testimony to a courageous 10-player performance that denied Canada any threatening chances from open play in the second half in Suwon.
With less than a minute played Canadian goal-machine Sinclair created enough of an opening on the edge of the area to squeeze off a curling shot over the outstretched leg of her marker.
New Zealand rocked by the opening goal, as they struggled to replicate the form they displayed in their win over Argentina, but slowly managed to force their way back into the match.
Amber Hearn and Abby Erceg had half-chances to equalise but the Football Ferns needed a brilliant save from Bindon to deny Sinclair a second goal just before the break.
Any hopes of overturning the deficit were extinguished in the 52nd minute when Sinclair chased a through ball and drew Howard into bringing her down.
Despite appearing to get a touch on the ball in the challenge, Howard was sent off, and Lang slotted the resulting spot kick.
Coach John Herdman was full of admiration for his side's performance.
"They're no better than us" Herdman said of the world No 9-ranked Canadians.
"They battered us in the first 20 to be fair, but for the next 25 we competed as well as they did, and in the second half we had the better of them.
" The players are disappointed with losing 2-0 and that's a positive. We haven't tried to shut up shop or run the clock down as we might have in the past."
Herdman praised Hill.
"Kristy showed a lot of guts in grabbing the gloves in her second game and looked pretty comfortable out there. She tidied up well but never really had a save to make," he said
With wins in each of their three group matches, Canada topped group A and will face either the United States, Australia or Brazil in the final on Saturday.
Result: New Zealand 0 Canada 2 (Christine Sinclair, Kara Lang). Halftime: 0-1.
- NZPA
