Hockey: Black Sticks finish sixth

By MARK GEENTY

The Black Sticks couldn't give their goalkeeping rock Helen Clarke a winning sendoff from international hockey as Australia beat them 3-0 in the Olympic women's playoff for fifth in Athens today.

After the massive high of Tuesday's 3-2 thriller over Korea which sealed them a place in the elite Champions Trophy tournament in November, it was a flatter effort in the midday heat today against one of the pre-tournament favourites.

Germany won the gold medal in the tournament. The Netherlands took silver and Argentina bronze.

Having come into the tournament ranked ninth in the world, the New Zealanders mirrored their sixth placed finish four years ago in Sydney.

For Australia, without injured key player Sarah Taylor, it was a big comedown from their gold in Sydney.

Australia scored in the 14th, 42nd and 67th minutes while New Zealand rued their missed chances after dominating the first 15 minutes.

All three goals gave Clarke no chance after some invaluable diving saves early on. She will retire with 166 caps to her name, spread over 13 years.

The first Australian goal came from a penalty corner saved by Clarke, but Julie Towers was on hand to smash it home high into the net, narrowly missing defender Lizzy Igasan's head. Igasan took five stitches when a ball struck her beside the eye early in the tournament.

The second and third came from Australia captain Katrina Powell, who was in grave doubt for the tournament with a calf injury.

New Zealand thought they had opened the scoring in the fourth minute, the first of numerous chances, but Niniwa Roberts-Lang's penalty corner strike was ruled too high.

The statistics told the story of an even clash, with New Zealand having 14 shots on goal, including six penalty corners, to Australia's 16 shots.

Captain Suzie Muirhead was deflated despite emulating the side's effort four years ago.

She said the team's finishing throughout the tournament had been "mediocre", with New Zealand scoring just six goals from six matches, having beaten Spain and Korea 3-2.

"There's no motivation needed for playing Australia, they're old foes and we dearly would have loved to beat them at the Olympics," Muirhead said.

"We had just as many chances and the game was relatively even in the field, but they put their chances in the net and we couldn't quite get ours at the goal."

Muirhead, who topped 200 appearances at the tournament, was undecided about her future and whether she would follow Clarke into retirement. She was looking forward to taking time off to decide her next move.

Coach Ian Rutledge put a more positive spin on the situation.

"Overall I think we've done pretty well, we've achieved 90 per cent of what we came here to accomplish. We're a very young side, already we've achieved what the team in Sydney did as a very experienced side," he said.

"Sixth at an Olympics is admirable and I'm very hopeful for the future."

- NZPA