Hockey: Golden shootout still possible

By CHRIS RATTUE

New Zealand suffered the Olympic hockey setback everyone expected against Australia, but the gold-medal game is still within their reach.

New Zealand face an all or nothing match, in terms of their gold-medal hopes, against Spain on Monday night. A loss would put them out of contention to be among the top two in the medal pool grouping.

Australia, backed by massive crowd support which drowned out a brave but beaten contingent of New Zealand fans, won their medal pool game 3-0 in Sydney on Sunday night.

The world champions, who are overwhelming favourites to retain their Olympic crown, crushed New Zealand with a 12-minute goal spree in the second half.

As Australian coach Rick Charlesworth was at pains to point out, hockey "unfortunately does not reward enterprise.

"You can have 20 shots to five and lose," he said. This was about the shot count at the State Hockey Centre at Olympic Park.

All is not lost for New Zealand, even though they are at the foot of the medal pool table with Argentina and the Netherlands.

If New Zealand can beat Spain on Monday and Argentina on Wednesday, they would make the gold-medal playoff if Australia beats the Netherlands and China as they are expected to do.

At least New Zealand's destiny is still in their own hands if the home side keeps winning.

New Zealand had an early scare against Australia when a superb Australian move finished with a Rechelle Hawkes' shot skimming the bar.

New Zealand competed well for the first 20 minutes, but the game started to slip at that point.

Australia applied the killer blows between the 50th and 62nd minutes. Nikki Hudson scored from a penalty corner, getting a handy deflection. Hudson scored again two minutes later and Katrina Powell finished off a brilliant Australian move for the third goal.

"There's a long way to go in this tournament and Australia have still got to beat Holland which traditionally has not been easy for them," said New Zealand coach Jan Borren.

"We probably have some advantage against Spain. It will be their fourth game in five days which will be tough for them."

Run-on captain Suzie Pearce said she felt New Zealand had good control in the first half, but by the end the side was facing wave after wave of Australian attack.

"I don't think we've played our best hockey so far. We've played patches of good hockey but maybe not for 70 minutes," said Pearce.

"I definitely think anyone is beatable on their day, but Australia would probably have to play below their best and their opponents would have to play at their best for 70 minutes and defend very well."

This is one way of saying that it is very hard to see Australia missing out on gold.

Charlesworth is taking no chances, though, and declined to allow any of his players to talk to the media after Sunday's win, saying they had a tough match against the Netherlands tonight to prepare for.

"We were a bit anxious early," said Charlesworth.

"But once we had scored ... when your strategy is just to defend it's hard to know what to do then.

"I always rate New Zealand. They're fierce competitors with a number of quality players.

"They beat us here a month or so ago, although it was in a game where I thought we had the better of the chances. You have to be vigilant."