SA women pass Spain for bronze

"I JUST took it as though it was in a training session," striker Dirkie Chamberlain said after her flick from the penalty spot won the South Africa women's hockey team the bronze medal against Spain by one goal to nil at the Champions Challenge at the Glasgow Green stadium in Scotland yesterday.

The 67th minute winner capped a thrilling match in which goalmouth action flew from end to end at an incredible pace.

It was fastest match of the tournament, a remarkable feat considering it was each side's sixth test match in eight days.

The victory – with just three minutes left – also served as a degree of consolation for the girls in green and gold, who were desperately unfortunate to lose their Saturday semifinal to Ireland 2-1, despite dominating the match.

"We came out today and gave everything, it's a wonderful team, we really got stuck in," Chamberlain said.

"We are elated, but I must pay a compliment to Spain for giving us such a great match, they didn't make it easy for us but we never stopped believing."

The crowd gave both sides a lengthy ovation in appreciation for a match that proved you do not have to have a lot of goals to make for an enthralling contest, yet on another day the score might well have gone into double figures.

Chamberlain had taken a fearful blow to the head as early as the seventh minute and had to be helped off, but the goalscorer returned to the fray less than five minutes later, indicative of the determination with which SA approached the match.

Both goalkeepers, Anelle van Deventer and Spain's Maria Zubiria de Eguilaz Lopez, made a number of fine saves, while to a player both sides gave their all and then some. And it was not only on attack that both sides shone, despite the low score, with some of the SA tackle-backs to regain possession out of the top drawer.

Chamberlain's winner came as a consequence of a brace of shots in succession from Celia Evans and Bernie Coston, this after SA captain Marsha Cox had made the initial pass, Coston's effort hitting a defender's foot on the goalline, and Chamberlain went low to Lopez's right from the penalty spot for the decisive moment of the match. - Jonathan Cook