Commonwealth Games: "Horrible" Hager shows his gentle side after epic loss

His nickname is short for horrible, but coach Mark Hager showed his gentle side after New Zealand suffered a heartbreaking penalty stroke loss to Australia in the Commonwealth Games women's hockey final yesterday.

After twice fighting their way back from a goal down in furnace-like conditions and scoring to make it 2-2 with only 45 seconds left, the Black Sticks then lost the shootout 2-4 when Australia put four of their five attempts past goalkeeper Beth Jurgeleit.

It was a crushing end to the match for the Black Sticks, who were finishing over the top of a tiring Australia, only to have the result decided by the penalty stroke lottery.

Hager - dubbed "Horry" after the cartoon character Hagar the Horrible - said he was "really proud" of his team.

New Zealand had won big games on strokes, so they had to accept losing that way.

"You've got to finish the game. It's cruel but it's life. This time the penny didn't roll our way," he said.

"Shit happens, we've got to live with it and move on. I'm really proud of the girls, they put in a good performance all tournament. I thought our second half was fantastic performance and one we need to learn from," he said.

Hager praised the heart the team showed in twice coming from a goal down to keep their hopes of gold alive.

"I've never doubted that with this team. That's one of the pleasing things coaching this team. Their never say die attitude and they just give it everything."

Even in the shootout the Blacks Sticks refused to lie down, with Anita Punt and Kayla Sharland scoring after Australian Rachael Lynch saved from Katie Glynn first up, then Krystal Forgesson pushed the second stroke wide.

And so the gold medal dream ended for New Zealand who for 70 minutes battled in a furnace, then pushed the game into extra time when Clarissa Eshuis hammered a penalty corner in off the pads of Lynch with less than 40 seconds to play.

Co-captain Sharland and her team had a silver, but had broken hearts as well.

"It was a tough way to end it," Sharland said.

"It sucked. It definitely soured it for us. We need to start better. We were probably a bit tentative, we weren't winning our midfield battles. In the second half we dominated them."

New Zealand had made most of the play against the tiring Australians in the second half, and Lynch was the busier keeper in extra time, but extra fitness was not a factor in penalty strokes, whereas the added experience of Australia was.

If Australia had looked slightly the better side in the first half, the Blacks Sticks transformed in the second, mounting a series of attacks which stretched their higher-ranked rivals.

The revival came after Hager gave the side a stern talking to at the interval.

"I said basically toughen up. There's a lot of things they say to me about the cold in New Zealand, 'get over it and toughen up'. I made the same comment. You need to get in there and make things happen and I thought they did."

Australia came into the gold medal match with an older, more experienced side than the Black Sticks, and at No 5, a world ranking two places higher.

New Zealand beat South Africa 1-0 to make the final, while Australia downed England by the same margin.

England beat South Africa 1-0 in the bronze medal match.