Olympics: Pressure on Black Sticks

Kayla Sharland jumps over Argentina's Macarena Rodriguez Perez. Some passive play and sloppy finishing cost New Zealand the game. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Argentina 2
New Zealand 1

Nine has been identified as the magic number. It's the number of points New Zealand women's hockey coach Mark Hager says his side needs to have in the bag before they take on Germany in their final pool match.

"There's four teams on six points now," Hager said of a topsy-turvy pool that sees New Zealand, Germany, Australia and Argentina on six points each with two wins and a loss from three matches.

The Black Sticks missed an opportunity to give themselves some breathing room when a passive first half and some sloppy finishing cost them a 1-2 loss to Argentina.

"We have to beat the US to give ourselves a chance against Germany [in the final Pool B match on Monday]. It's a simple fact, we have to get to nine points," Hager said.

The Americans have been competitive and combative in London, beating Argentina 1-0 and taking Australia to the wire before losing 0-1.

"They're a really physical, aggressive team," said Krystal Forgesson. "They play Argentina a lot, so for them to beat them was almost expected. It's like us and Australia. All the teams in our pool can beat each other; that's the beauty of it."

Aggressiveness was something that was lacking for the first half against Argentina, as they seemed content to sit back and soak up pressure, rather than take the game to the world's No2-ranked side. "We were a bit apprehensive at times and the score reflected that," Cathryn Finlayson said.

"We weren't really playing our style but at halftime we had a bit of a rark-up. We went back to our normal style of hockey, being a bit more attacking and having that aggressiveness, which we were lacking."

The return of midfielder Emily Naylor should add some starch. Naylor was set to play her 200th international but was withdrawn on the afternoon of the match with a back injury. Hager said the decision was more a precautionary measure.

Argentina scored an early, soft goal to Carla Rebecchi after a rare error by captain Kayla Sharland.

Midway through the second half Finlayson made a superb run into the circle but gave the keeper too easy a save with her first shot, then fluffed the rebound.

She then could only watch in horror as Argentina counterattacked and Rebecchi scored again.

The Black Sticks pulled one back through Charlotte Harrison and were finishing the stronger side, but ran out of time.