Olympics: Black Sticks have mountain to climb

It was somewhat symbolic the heavens opened up at the conclusion of the New Zealand men's hockey match tonight (NZT) because their 5-1 defeat to the Netherlands virtually washed away their medal hopes.

Their chances of making the semifinals aren't terminal - they would need to win their remaining games against Belgium and Germany well and hope other results go their way - but they are still paying a heavy price for their opening 2-0 defeat to Korea.

They went into the tournament thinking they probably had to win their 'easy' games against Korea, India and Belgium and upset one of the Netherlands and Germany along the way to make the semifinals. It was a difficult assignment but one they felt was achievable after their results over the past 12 months but skipper Dean Couzins is already resigned to their fate.

"The semifinals are gone which is really disappointing because your work so bloody hard towards stuff," he said "It's hard to take. We can be disappointed for a while but we have to pick ourselves back up and continue to play really, really well. It's important to try to finish as high as we can in the tournament and enjoy playing well with each other.

"The Korea game we didn't turn up to play. Today we gave it a good crack but we weren't quite good enough."

The Black Sticks played well, much better than the scoreline suggested. They were aggressive and caused the Dutch plenty of problems, and also scored an excellent early goal to Simon Child when Nick Wilson penetrated into the circle.

But Holland have long been one of the world's best, playing with speed and skill, and it would also take some luck to beat them. Instead, that luck went to the opposition.

Their first two goals came from penalty strokes - the first when Blair Hopping was struck on the hip with the ball goalbound and the second when Ryan Archibald inadvertently kicked the ball close to the goal. Both were technically correct but there was little the the Kiwis could do to avoid contact.

It gave the Netherlands the initiative and their third, a brilliant fast break rounded off by Billy Bakker, gave New Zealand too much to do.

The Black Sticks chased the game, and might have been able to force a draw if they had scored early in the second half, but it also left them exposed and the Dutch took advantage.

The sun returned soon after the rain. New Zealand will hope that's another omen starting with their next match against Belgium on Sunday night (NZT).

New Zealand 1 (Simon Child 6) Netherlands 5 (Roderick Weusthof 15, Mink van der Weerden 27, Billy Bakker 55, Robbert Kemperman 67). HT: 1-3.