Hockey: Shaw miss costs bronze at champions tournament

Devastating drag-flick scorer Hayden Shaw missed an extra-time penalty stroke today and New Zealand tumbled to fourth place in the Champions Challenge hockey tournament playoff against South Africa at Randburg, near Johannesburg.

In the playoff for the bronze medal, the two teams were tied 2-2 in regulation time, remained deadlocked after two extra periods of play and were 4-4 after the first set of five strokes for each team.

Then as the sudden-death second set of strokes came into effect, Shaw missed the net and the home side took the bronze medal, which will see them jump from 13th ranking to ninth.

With the loss, New Zealand will slip from ninth to 10th.

After a close first half in which New Zealand looked slightly more penetrating in attack, the second half was a much closer affair,

New Zealand struck mid way through the first half from a Shaw corner flick which broke the tie.

Ten minutes into the second half saw three goals in five minutes, with Shaw scoring again levelling the game to 2-2.

Both teams upped the pace but neither side could find a winner.

The match went to a penalty stroke competition after two periods of extra time.

All square at 4-4 after the first set of five strokes for each team, it was New Zealand hero Shaw who missed the net in the sudden-death.

Spain beat Korea 7-3 to win the gold medal and England beat Malaysia 3-2 to take fifth place.

- NZPA