Britain beat NZ for women's hockey bronze

Britain's women beat New Zealand 3-1 to take Olympic hockey bronze on Friday, winning a match played mostly in midfield in which all the goals came from set-piece penalty-corners.

Britain controlled the game but had few chances from open play and could not convert two penalty-corners in the first half, giving New Zealand the chance to build up pressure towards the interval.

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The Kiwis upped the pressure in the second half and struck the post in the first minute but Britain pushed to force errors in the D to take advantage of their strong penalty-corners.

In the 45th minute, that tactic paid off and the hosts scored from a penalty-corner when Alex Danson deflected a pass from captain Kate Walsh for her fifth goal in London.

Crista Cullen scored from a well-placed drag flick penalty corner in the 59th minute and Sarah Thomas deflected another corner into the goal four minutes later.

The Kiwis, whose previous best Olympic placing was sixth, pulled back a goal with a penalty corner deflection with just two minutes left.

The Netherlands will play world champions Argentina for the gold medal at 2330 IST.

(Reporting by Annika Breidthardt and William James, editing by Ed Osmond)