Hockey men beaten by Spain

The New Zealand men’s hockey team didn’t make their job of making the quarter-finals any easier after their 3-2 loss to Spain today.

With a defeat by Australia and a draw with Great Britain behind them, the New Zealand side was looking for a good win today, but instead bowed to a late Spanish goal.

Spain opened the scoring in the first minute, but Bradley Shaw levelled things in the third minute.

Spain forged ahead after 10 minutes, but New Zealand equalised again right on halftime when captain Simon Child slotted from a penalty corner.

There followed half an hour of see-sawing play until Xavi Lleonart despatched the winner.

New Zealand have two pool matches remaining, against Brazil and Belgium and are still more than capable of making the quarter-finals. 

New Zealand coach Colin Batch said the result was devastating, but that the team needed to move on and focus on winning their last two pool matches.

“We haven’t been starting very well and we saw that again today with Spain scoring virtually from the push back and that’s not good enough,” Batch said.

“The equation is now pretty simple – we need to win our last two pool games against Brazil and Belgium to put fate into our own hands.

“We need to get over the emotion of this game which is still pretty raw and front up tomorrow against Brazil.”