GB women take fifth spot

Hannah Macleod: scored twice

Great Britain's women beat Ireland 3-0 in their final competitive fixture before the Olympic Games on Sunday.

Hannah Macleod netted two first-half goals before Emily Maguire scored from a penalty corner in the second half to complete the win, which saw Britain claim fifth spot in the Investec London Cup.

Ireland started the fifth/sixth place play-off well but the lively Macleod , who celebrated her 28th birthday yesterday, gave GB the lead in the 11th minute.

The Leicester forward made it 2-0 four minutes later following a goalmouth scramble and although Ireland tried to force their way back into the game before half-time, they could find no way through.

GB controlled the second half but a number of fine saves from Ireland goalkeeper Pamela Smithwick made sure they added only one more goa,l with Reading defender Maguire netting in the 59th minute.

Despite finishing the tournament with a win, GB head coach Danny Kerry was far from pleased with the performance.

Sloppy

"To be frank I'm disappointed today, said Kerry, who felt his side should have been celebrating a much greater margin of victory.

"Our skill execution was poor and we really should have put them to the sword. Yes we're missing a few influential players but it should have been a cricket score.

"I'm sure it seems strange that I spoke after the Germany game (GB lost 2-1 on Thursday) and was really pleased with how we'd played and today we've won and I'm disappointed.

"We were sloppy in our execution at the end of the first half and it just wasn't up to the required standard of execution and concentration.

"If we play like that against Argentina, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, China we'll be punished."

Great Britain now have a recovery week before returning to training for the final run-in to the Olympics.

The squad's centralised training programme will continue until the 16 athlets selected for the Games enter the Olympic village in the third week of July.