Hockey: New Zealand campaign comes down to Belgium match

New Zealand's World Cup hockey campaign has come down to their one remaining pool match as the team seek to improve their world ranking of 16th.

The Kiwis play Belgium in their last pool match on Tuesday afternoon (NZ time) and need to win if they are to qualify for the ninth to 12th classification section next week rather than for 13th to 16th.

With Belgium having lost their first five matches, New Zealand have a strong chance of achieving that goal.

"We need that one to redeem ourselves a little bit," New Zealand team manager Arvind Jasmat said yesterday.

"We came here to play good hockey and we have at times but we're not getting the goals and results which show that."

New Zealand suffered their most disappointing result of the tournament last night, with the 1-3 loss to Argentina.

It was their fifth defeat from six games and they will finish no higher than sixth in their eight-team pool. The Argentines recorded their fourth-straight win and move into final contention.

Before the tournament began the match was targeted as winnable by New Zealand but after trailing 1-2 at halftime, they turned on a lacklustre second half.

Jasmat didn't want to blame the hot and humid conditions in the Malaysian capital.

"We let ourselves down with some cheap turnovers in the second half and we were punished for it in the end," Jasmat told NZPA.

"We were still in the game after halftime and had a reasonable amount of possession inside the circle but couldn't get another goal.

"We saw this as a game we had a good chance in but we didn't achieve the result we wanted. The guys are all pretty disappointed."

The tournament's leading goalscorer Jorge Lombi notched his sixth goal when he opened the scoring in the third minute from a penalty corner.

Wellington forward Phillip Burrows replied from a penalty corner in the eighth minute but Argentina regained the lead via Matias Vila after half an hour.

The decisive goal came via Mario Almada and a deflection after 65 minutes.

Argentina 3 (Jorge Lombi 3, Matias Vila 31, Mario Almada 65)

New Zealand 1 (Phillip Burrows 8)

Halftime: 2-1

- NZPA