Alex Danson and Crista Cullen pounce to keep women's hockey team in contention

Alex Danson and Crista Cullen pounce to keep women's hockey team in contention

Great Britain's women earned their first victory of the Games with a 2-1 win over New Zealand. It wasn't exactly pretty but it keeps them in semi-final contention with two group matches to come.

Alex Danson and Crista Cullen pounce to keep women's hockey team in contention - Great Britain's Alex Danson, second from left, celebrates a goal against New Zealand during their wome

Stick with it: Great Britain's Alex Danson (r) celebrates a goal against New Zealand

Goals from Alex Danson, who steered in the first, and Crista Cullen, who converted a corner, put Britain fourth in a very open pool. They must win their remaining games and hope Argentina slip up if they are to reach the last four for the first time since 1996 and make what they would call in these parts a great leap forward.

Given the way things started here (a 5-1 drubbing by Germany) coach Danny Kerry was satisfied by Britain's progress.

"I'm delighted with the result and especially by the manner in which we won," he said. "We generated a lot of opportunities, especially in the second half."

Elsewhere in the pool, Argentina regained some momentum with a 2-1 win over Japan (Britain's next opponents) while Germany recorded their third triumph by beating the United States 4-2.

In the other section, Holland were impressive in beating China 1-0. The hosts have more than a billion reasons to feel the pressure here and it showed in front of goal.

Meanwhile, Great Britain's men are back in action against South Africa. The good news is that South Africa's last outing was a record Olympic 10-0 thrashing by Australia. The bad news is that Great Britain must play Australia next week.

Hockey highlights

*Argentina's women, considered medal shoo-ins before the tournament, cannot afford to lose to defending champions Germany.

* Great Britain's women face Japan in the battle for semi-final places.

* Australia's men tackle Holland in a repeat of the Athens final on Sunday