England frustrated by poor finishing

Hockey

England experienced a frustrating weekend in the Netherlands as they went through their final preparations for next week's European Cup in Dublin with two convincing defeats at the hands of the world silver medallists.

David Whitaker, England's coach, described the weekend as: "Disappointing and frustrating, but we must learn from our mistakes. In each game we fought back well and created a lot of chances but our finishing was not good."

At Breda on Saturday, England conceded four goals in nine minutes before losing 5-1. Yesterday, in The Hague, they lost 5-2 despite soaking up considerable pressure in the opening 10 minutes.

After the Dutch captain Marc Delissen opened the scoring, loose marking allowed Remco Van Wijk to put them further ahead before the interval.

After falling further behind Rob Thompson forced a penalty corner in the second half, which Callum Giles converted. Thompson struck again with an impressive individual goal in the final minute.

NETHERLANDS: R Jansen; E Jazet, J Delmee; W Van Pelt, B Poortenaar; J Brinkman, M Delissen (capt), L Klein Gebbink; S Veen, T De Nooijer, R Van Wijk. Substitutes used: R Koster, M Eikelboom.

ENGLAND: D Luckes (East Grinstead); J Halls (Old Loughtonians), P McGuire (Teddington); S Hazlitt (Hounslow), Soma Singh (Southgate, capt), R Garcia (Polo Barcelona); C Mayer, Kalbir Takher (both Cannock), R Thompson (Hounslow), J Laslett (Teddington), B Sharpe (Cannock). Substitutes used: C Giles (Havant), J Shaw (Southgate), N Thompson (Old Loughtonians).

Umpires: J Rommel and C Siebrecht (Germany).