After a rather poor performance against Germany, the Great Britain team that took the field earlier today looked more determined than the one that had lost 5-1 on Sunday. Argentina played with their usual flair and Aymar was, as ever, a constant threat, but Danny Kerry’s girls seemed to have learnt a few lessons from the earlier match. Jo Ellis had a shot at goal saved by Paulo Vukojicic seven minutes into the match. But it was Argentina who found the net first after Helen Richardson was penalised for a heavy tackle and Agustina Garcia struck home a rebound off the post from the resulting penalty corner. Argentina made it two a few minutes before the break when Alejandra Gulla deflected the ball into the goal from a penalty corner.
Great Britain had chances to come back into the game early in the second half when there was a goalmouth scramble in front of the Argentine goal, followed by a penalty corner after Sarah Thomas had been fouled in the circle, but nothing came from them. It was a two minute golden spot midway through the half that gave GB a chance of getting back into the match. A penalty corner award allowed Sarah Thomas to deflect the ball into the Argentine net. This was followed with a series of penalty corners in quick succession which eventually led to Mel Clewlow (pictured) finding the net from a first time strike. Final score 2-2 to Great Britain.
Looking realistically at the results from the two matches, one point is better than our world ranking would dictate. A fine result against Argentina but GB will have to go some from now on to have even the slimmest hopes of being amongst the medal contenders next week.
A round up of today’s results will be posted later today plus full results and tables on our main web site at www.talkhockeyradio.co.uk.
