Hockey: Lee decries defending

"We started excellently but soon our pressure on the ball carrier and tightness in our marking began to drop, and then with forwards of the quality of Burrows, New Zealand began to cut us to pieces." This summing-up by Great Britain's disappointed chief coach, Jason Lee, followed his team's 4-2 defeat in the third game of the five-Test series in Mt Maunganui yesterday, which put the Kiwis 2-1 up in the series.

Britain began confidently with Jason Collins giving them the lead at their second penalty corner in the sixth minute. The hosts then began to capitalise on British mistakes with their left-wing attacks tearing the British defence to shreds. A Hayden Shaw free hit from just outside the circle saw Umesh Parag diving in for the equaliser in the 21st minute with Shaw putting his side ahead a few minutes later from a penalty corner. Half-time came with Phillip Burrows pouncing on poor marking in the British defence to send New Zealand into the interval with a 3-1 lead.

With David Kosoof scoring five minutes into the second half, Britain managed to salvage some respectability with a late Tom Bertram penalty corner. The teams meet for the two final Tests over the weekend.

Coming on in the second-half, Simon Mason equalled Ian Taylor, the Olympic gold medal goalkeeper in Seoul, as the most capped British goalkeeper on 171 caps.