Hockey: New Zealand lose to Pakistan

9.55am

UPDATED REPORT - New Zealand hockey coach Kevin Towns has slammed the standard of umpiring after his team lost 4-1 to Pakistan at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Spain this morning.

New Zealand now face a sudden-death game against South Africa on Friday to keep their trip to Athens alive -- a position not helped by the South African and Spanish umpires, Towns fumed.

"I don't normally say this after a loss, but we're absolutely appalled at the standard of umpiring and today was no exception.

"There were just some shocking decisions and I've had enough of it. We've had the run of the green the wrong way for too long."

Towns' first gripe came after Pakistan scored their first goal from a penalty corner, when the umpire ruled the ball hit a New Zealand defenders foot.

That levelled the score at 1-1 after Hayden Shaw had given New Zealand the early lead from a penalty corner and Pakistan's Sohail Abbas scored a second goal before halftime to put his side ahead.

New Zealand had needed to win by an unlikely three goals to make the semifinals but Pakistan gave them no chance as they confirmed their own trip to the Olympics with two more goals in the second half.

To qualify for the Olympics, teams must finish in the top seven at the 12-team tournament.

Towns said too many of the New Zealand players poured forward on attack as they fell behind which left them vulnerable to a Pakistani reply.

"Players didn't stick to the play at the end of the day, they were too anxious about putting more pressure on Pakistan."

Despite the defensive lapses Towns' still felt the umpires helped determined the outcome with some perplexing rulings.

"They were applying rules that aren't in the book by letting players stand within five-metres of a tossed ball, when the rules state you can't," he said.

"They also continually allowed the ball to be played in the air around players one way but not the other.

"We were getting penalised at one end for it but not at the other.

"It was very frustrating."

The coach also claimed that New Zealand had two blatant penalty corners disallowed.

After the match Towns said the umpires' coach and manager spoke with them, acknowledging there were some dubious decisions.

"Apart from one referee it's (the umpiring) been absolutely poor and not up to standard for such an important event."

Today's match was officiated by a South African referee who Towns said "wasn't too bad" while the Spanish referee "was shocking".

Heading into Friday's sudden-death game the team were still confident of a positive outcome.

"We'll get through this with confidence because there was some good passages of play today," Towns said.

"We moved the ball at speed, attacked the circle and got goal scoring opportunities.

"If we play the game at pace, move the ball and point of attack frequently then we should take the game, but we need to be more disciplined in terms of distribution of players from defence to attack."

Towns will have a full squad to choose from for Friday's game despite Simon Towns' unavailability today and the coach is also feeling assured that the umpiring will be improved.

"We've made some suggestions and should get the umpires we've asked for."

Pakistan and India will now advance to the semifinals from group B, where they will meet Spain and the Netherlands from the other side of the draw.

The Dutch will meet India and Spain play Pakistan in the semifinals.

In other results, Belgium stayed on course to qualify for their first Olympics since 1976 by eliminating Malaysia 2-1 in Pool B, and Britain humbled South Africa 6-0 only for the losers to stay alive when Poland also lost 0-6 to Spain in pool A games.

- NZPA