Britain slip after Brown is injured

Hockey

BILL COLWILL

reports from Cape Town

Great Britain 1 South Korea 3

Great Britain's Olympic qualifying hopes took a dip yesterday when, after an injury to Karen Brown, they suffered their first defeat here, losing to the tournament favourites, South Korea.

British coach, Sue Slocombe, said: "Sadly we ran out of steam and lost a very important player. The Koreans are a very fit and very fast side."

Britain had to survive constant early Korean attacks but gradually clawed their way into the game. Anna Bennett collected a shrewd cross-field pass from Mandy Davies, outwitted two Korean defenders and crossed for Rhona Simpson to score her second goal of the tournament.

The Koreans bounced back, and, incredibly, increased their speed after the interval. Britain came under extreme pressure with the Korean captain, Eun Jung Jang, finishing off a well-worked penalty corner for the equaliser. Shortly afterwards Brown was carried off with suspected concussion following an uncompromising tackle on Eun Kyung Lee. The restructured defence struggled to keep the Koreans at bay until, in the 57th minute, they conceded a second goal at Korea's seventh penalty corner, Eun Jung Cho converting. She scored again with a lob at another penalty corner three minutes from time.

GREAT BRITAIN: J Thompson (Ipswich); S Fraser (Grove), J Atkins (Bradford Swithenbank, capt), K Brown (Slough), L Cope (Balsam Leicester); M Davies (Sutton Canada Life), P Robertson (Grove), T Miller (Clifton); J Sixsmith (Sutton Canada Life), M Nicholls (Slough), A Bennett (Slough). Substitutes used: R Simpson (Edinburgh), S MacDonald (Glasgow Western), C Cook (Hightown), D Renilson (Edinburgh).

SOUTH KOREA: Jae Sook You; Eun Jung Cho; Eun Young Lee, Chang Sook Kwon, Seung Shin Oh; Myung Ok Kim, Eun Jung Jang, Jeong Sook Lim; Eun Kyung Lee, Ji Young Lee, Soo Hyun Kwon. Substitute used: Young Seon Jeon.

Results, Sporting Digest, page 31