Smith goal shows Britain are on way back

Great Britain's resolute defending denied the Dutch victory in the second of their two Tests yesterday. After Britain's 2-1 victory on Thursday evening the Dutch stormed into the attack in the opening minutes in temperatures in the high 80s.

Great Britain's resolute defending denied the Dutch victory in the second of their two Tests yesterday. After Britain's 2-1 victory on Thursday evening the Dutch stormed into the attack in the opening minutes in temperatures in the high 80s.

Britain, however, had the chance to draw first blood with two penalty corners inside the first six minutes. Jane Smith's first shot was deflected over the crossbar and Mel Clewlow's second was scrambled away by the Dutch goalkeeper.

The half ended with Britain successfully defending four penalty corners, but the Dutch continued to dominate after the interval, taking the lead from a penalty corner in the 49th minute. Ageeth Boomgaardt's shot was nudged past Carolyn Reid by Carole Thate at close range.

Smith scored the equaliser, also from a corner with a lob into the top of the net. The coach, Jon Royce, will be concerned that his team conceded in all 11 penalty corners but satisfied that they had restricted the usually immaculate Dutch corner routine to just one goal.

On Saturday against Germany, Britain were destroyed by Natacha Keller who scored all three goals. Someone will need to do a tight marking job on the 21-year-old when the teams meet again tomorrow.

Royce said afterwards: "It showed that Saturday's result was an aberration. Today was a salutary warning that we are back on track."

THE NETHERLANDS: C Finnige; D van den Boogaard (cap); M Booij, J Deiters, A Boomgaardt; C Thate, M Smabers, M van den Vaart; M Donners, S van der Wielen, F van de Kiest. Subs used: F de Melo, H Smabers, M Teeuwen.

GREAT BRITAIN: C Reid (Hightown); K Walsh (Hightown), F Greenham (Slough), M Clewlow (Canterbury), K Johnson (Harleston Magpies); J Smith (Slough), K Bowden (Fyffes Leicester), D Marston-Smith (Clifton); J Sixsmith (Sutton Coldfield), L Wright (Olton), T Cullen (Hightown). Substitutes used: R Simpson (Grange Edinburgh), H Richardson (Fyffes Leicester), P Stott (Bonagraff Grove, capt), M Nicholson (Slough), J Jack (Grange Edinburgh), A Bennett (Canterbury).

Umpires: I Kluyskens (Bel) and U Conen (Ger).