Cracking start for hockey women

The New Zealand women’s hockey team produced one of their best Olympic results, beating world No 2 Argentina 3-0 in their opening game of the Tokyo Games today.

The New Zealand goals all came in the second half, after a cagey opening 30 minutes.

Missing their two most experienced players, captain Stacey Michelson and defender Sam Charlton, both sidelined by injury, the New Zealanders, ranked sixth in the world, played with heart and determination to first subdue then dominate Argentina for much of the second half.

Kelsey Smith scored the opening goal four minutes after halftime, lobbing the ball high into the Argentine net from close in.

Hope Ralph got the second six minutes later from a well-worked penalty corner, when her deflected shot slipped under Argentina’s goalkeeper, but the best came late on.

Holly Pearson grabbed her first international goal in style, driving her shot on the turn firmly past the keeper with seven minutes left.

New Zealand goalie Grace O’Hanlon had an outstanding game with a string of fine saves as Argentina, desperate to get something from the game, piled on the pressure.

As a unit the New Zealand defence worked tirelessly.

The win gives the New Zealanders a dream start to their Olympic campaign. They finished an agonising fourth at the last two Olympics, but could not have asked for more today.

Next up they face the hosts, world No 13 Japan, followed by No 7 Spain, No 4 Australia and finally No 11 China.

Not surprisingly, the New Zealanders were bubbling afterwards.

Pearson, asked how she felt to score her first goal for New Zealand, said: “To be honest with you, I’m just happy we won. Scoring a goal is cool, too.”

Olivia Merry, who captained the team today, said there was huge emphasis on the first game and it was good to get first-game nerves out of the way. “We’ve only played Australia in the past few months, so it was really encouraging to put in a good performance against another really strong side. Argentina are the sort of team that can always come back, and to win 3-0 was very satisfying. We’ve been working on our set pieces, so it was good to put away a few penalty corners as well.”

Merry said the result was a big stepping stone for her team. “You don’t win the gold medal from just one game, but it sets us on our way and gives us some good momentum.”

She said the players were doing all they could to handle the heat – it was 37 degrees during the match. “We’ve prepared as well as we can, we use every break for cooling down and we’ve tried to embrace the heat. It is what it is, and I thought we handled it well today.”