Black Sticks take loss on the chin

PETER MEECHAM/Fairfax Media

HE'S THE MAN: Hayden Shaw scored a hat-trick to propel the Black Sticks to an emphatic 3-1 victory over Korea.

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Senior Black Stick Hayden Shaw has taken hockey heartbreak on the chin, saying his team was not good enough to make the Olympic semi-finals.

New Zealand needed to beat world champions Germany to advance to the last four for the first time in 32 years but they were comprehensively outplayed in the 3-1 defeat at the Olympic Hockey Green yesterday.

"The way we played out there today we don't deserve to be in the semis," the straight shooting Shaw said.

"To be honest the Spanish game and this game we got dominated.

"You could say our defence was worthy of it but when we pushed forward we got cleaned out. If you look at the stats from both the Germany and Spain games we were on the back foot so if we are being realistic about it, we cant argue too much.

"We can be disappointed, though. Sport is sport and we had an opportunity and missed it."

Germany had 20 attempts on goal to New Zealand's eight and the world champions gained four penalty corners to a solitary one to the Kiwis, which Shaw slotted home in the 46th minute to close the gap to 2-1.

"It is disappointing but if the game was closer it would be more disappointing. When it went to 3-1, realising we had to win 4-3 to qualify for the semi, we knew what was coming to us.

"Without being pessimistic they were the cold facts." After beginning the tournament with promising 3-1 and 4-2 victories over Korea and Belgium, respectively, New Zealand went off the boil, losing 1-0 to Spain, drawing 2-2 with China and losing to Germany.

New Zealand made the worst possible start yesterday, conceding two goals in the opening nine minutes to Timo Weiss and Moritz Fuerste but they had a glimmer a hope when Shaw's bullet beat German goalkeeper Max Weinhold low to his right.

But the killer punch came with 12 minutes remaining when a defensive error gave Florian Keller a goal on a plate.

New Zealand captain Ryan Archibald, who was well looked after by the German midfield , could not explain their slow start.

"In the first 10 minutes we were perhaps on the back foot and a bit tentative, but we certainly weren't scared of playing Germany. We knew it was going to be a challenge." "Germany were just a bit more clinical today.

"Their consistency and base skills were a bit better than what ours were. That's their strength."

New Zealand now have to pick themselves up for a game on Thursday, which will either be a classification match for placings 5-6 or 7-8 depending on the result of last night's game (10.30pm NZ time) between Spain and Korea.

New Zealand need Spain to win by comfortably if they are to play for fifth.

- © Fairfax NZ News