Hockey: Another win but medal chances go begging

By MARK GEENTY IN ATHENS

New Zealand were left to rue early lapses against the big guns today as they racked up a third successive Olympic men's hockey win, only to still miss the medal round.

New Zealand beat South Africa 4-1 to seal third place in pool B behind the Netherlands and Australia.

It means the highest they can finish is fifth, with two more ranking matches to go, starting with either Korea or Pakistan on Thursday morning.

Giant defender Hayden Shaw was at it again yesterday, drilling home two of his three penalty corner attempts, while strikers Dave Kosoof and Phillip Burrows added the other goals in a game which saw the teams locked at 1-1 at halftime.

New Zealand beat Argentina and India in their previous two matches, but their minds were still cast back to the 4-3 loss to the Dutch, when a draw would have kept their medal chances intact.


"The Dutch game was a real bummer, if we had had just two or three minutes more, or slotted that corner at the end," Burrows lamented.

"But we were ranked 11th coming in and we're going to finish pretty high now."

A top-six finish has added incentive for New Zealand, with those sides going to Lahore for the elite Champions Trophy tournament at the end of this year.

The one concern for coach Kevin Towns is the fitness of his son and captain Simon Towns, who received two nasty blows to his left knee and hobbled off late in the match.

He will be reassessed today.

Kevin Towns said last night's performance was the worst of their three wins, with flat periods either side of halftime giving the physical South Africans a sniff when the New Zealanders conceded soft turnovers.

Kosoof opened the scoring after 15 minutes when he slipped the ball under the goalkeeper's leg in a goalmouth scramble, but South Africa hit back in similar fashion just before the break.

Shaw then got into his work, with two drag flicks finding the right corner of the netting in the 38th and 47th minutes to all but seal the game.

They lifted Shaw's goal haul at the Games to six from five matches.

Shaw, though, was in trouble after his second corner, with a rough challenge earning him his second yellow card of the tournament.

But no damage was done, as goalkeeper Paul Woolford was superb with a string of second-half saves from general play and penalty corners.

Burrows applied the icing in the last minute with a blistering shot from an acute angle.

- NZPA