For most sports fans, 5-1 against Germany brings backs memories of a glorious football night in Munich back in 2001. 

Unfortunately for Team GB’s hockey players in Tokyo, including Cookstown pair David Ames and Ian Sloan, the roles were reversed as the Germans dealt Danny Kerry’s men a humbling blow. 

That football defeat came in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup, but by the time of the tournament itself, it was Germany who progressed further, eventually falling to Brazil in the final in Yokohama. 

GB will have to turn things around rather more quickly, not least the way they appeared to drop their heads after going behind, but skipper Adam Dixon believes they are capable of doing so. 

“We can't take that game in isolation because we've had a positive start. This is a hiccup so to speak. It hurts a little bit more the fact that it's Germany. But we've got to pick ourselves up now because we've got two big games against the Dutch and the Belgians," said Dixon, who is able to train full-time and benefit from world class facilities, technology, coaching and support teams thanks to National Lottery funding – which has never been more important in getting her to the start line after a turbulent year.

“Let's try to finish this pool stage off in a strong position. But yeah, we're kicking ourselves after that result but we've got to turn it around in 48hrs time. 

“I would have liked to have seen us come together when we went a couple of goals down, just like come together as a team and really scrap it out. I didn't think we had much fight in us today which is sort of... when we're struggling we fall back to being good mates and scrapping it out. So I would have liked to have seen more of that.” 

Victories over Canada and South Africa have put GB in a strong position to emerge from Group B, but they will likely need to beat either the Dutch or the Belgians to avoid fourth spot. 

That is particularly important because Australia are marching through Group A, with 17 goals in three matches, and will be the likely opponent in the quarters if GB cannot rediscover that winning touch. 

They had started well with a fine strike from Phil Roper, after some good harrying and a clever pass by Liam Ansell, but Roper admits that it was little consolation as the Germans ran away with it. 

He added: “I’d have preferred not to score and definitely get a win. 

“We talk a lot about not being too high and not being too low. We’ve lost, we’re going to be disappointed for a couple of hours but it’s a quick turnaround. We’ve got two amazing teams we are going to play that we want to compete with, that we can beat. Going forward we need to look at the video and learn our lessons and come and compete against Holland.”

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