Jason Lee, Britain’s hockey coach, today said his players had to draw on what experience they had to secure ninth place in a penalty shoot-out victory over South Africa as they had not practised strokes beforehand.
They ran out 4-3 winners from the spot as, after Niall Stott had missed Britain’s third and Wayne Denne South Africa’s fourth, Danny Hall stuck in the fifth and Simon Mason saved with his feet from Chelmsford’s Craig Fulton.
The match went to a shoot-out when golden goal extra-time could not separate the sides after Guildford midfielder Guy Fordham’s 43rd-minute goal was cancelled out two minutes later by former Surbiton striker Greg Nicol.
Afterwards Lee admitted because of the logistics of the tournament - which involved a 90-minute round-trip from the Athletes’ Village to the Helleniko Hockey Centre and a day-on, day-off playing schedule - they had not prepared for penalties.
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“At the back of my mind, because of the way the competition has gone, we had to expect strokes,” he said.
“But our preparations have not had the best balance because we have had 45 minutes’ travel to the ground - therefore we have not had the opportunity to practice strokes during the course of the tournament.
“What we had done was, in the warm-up games, we had asked our opposition to play a stroke competition so we had practised and had (picked) seven guys.”
The match itself was largely unforgettable as the Athens heat suppressed much attacking intent and the monotony was broken only by an enterprising 30-yard run from Fordham and Nicol’s superb demonstration of how to find space in the circle.
“It has always been tight between us and them but I think we were the best side,” Lee added.
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“They have got good individuals and the heat took the energy out of our game. It didn’t seem to affect them as much but eventually we got there.”
Ninth place was only one below GB’s world ranking coming into the tournament, although in reality that should have been lower as Spain (who were ranked below them) are one of the most improved sides in the last two years.
Lee made no apologies for going to Athens with the intention of trying to win a medal but admitted when the approach did not work it made things even harder.
“It has been very tough because we set ourselves very, very difficult targets. Probably they weren’t achievable targets but we set them anyway knowing how difficult they were.”