The Mercury E-dition

Britain too great for SA women

Zaahier.adams@inl.co.za

IT all started so splendidly well for the South African women's hockey team, but ultimately they went down 4-1 to a rampant Great Britain outfit in their Pool A clash at the Tokyo Olympics yesterday.

Early pressure from the South Africans on the Great Britain goal resulted in three penalty corners. It was third time lucky for the women in green and gold when Nicole Walraven swept the ball home to give her team an early lead.

This was easily the best period of the game for the South Africans as they forced Great Britain into making plenty of mistakes in the first half.

However, the British team have loads of experience and started to settle into their more natural passing game. They also started slowing the pace of the game by employing much more width to their play.

The crucial blow came shortly before the halftime interval when Great Britain's Ellie Rayer cancelled out Walraven's opener.

This paved the way for Team GB to entirely dominate the second half as they overpowered SA with a further three goals.

Anna Toman's deflection gave Great Britain the lead before Laura Unsworth's anticipation to pick up a stray SA pass in defence made it 3-1. Rayer then doubled her tally shortly before the final whistle to close out a comprehensive victory for the British women.

SA's challenge at the Games only gets steeper as their next match is against Pool B leaders the Netherlands tomorrow at 2.30pm.

SPORT

en-za

2021-07-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://themercury.pressreader.com/article/282007560423719

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