Well, at least the hardest part is over.
That was one slither of consolation grabbed by New Zealand men's hockey coach Shane McLeod after watching his team suffer a second successive heavy defeat at the elite Champions Trophy tournament in Germany today.
The New Zealanders went down 2-5 to Olympic champions and world No 2 Germany at Monchengladbach, 48 hours after opening their account with a record 1-9 loss to world champions Australia.
McLeod acknowledged the particularly difficult opening to the tournament for his side, ranked seventh in the world, who next play the Netherlands on Wednesday morning (NZT).
"We struggle playing Germany and it is a tough entry into the tournament to play Australia then Germany. I would not wish that on anyone," McLeod said.
"We made progress from the first game and there are aspects of our game I am quite pleased with, however there is a list of things that did not quite work according to our planning."
Germany pressed New Zealand early, gaining four penalty corners which were all confidently defended by Kyle Pontifex or run down by Shea McAleese.
Auckland striker Simon Child had a golden chance to score the first goal, getting a free, unchallenged shot at close range, but missed the net.
Germany resorted to long overheads out of defence to attack the Black Sticks' defence after finding themselves unable to penetrate the New Zealand midfield with passes and running possession.
Germany's lack of success with the first series of penalty corners saw them to use a variation to the right post for Christoph Menke to deflect home for their first goal in the 19th minute.
They then added a quality goal 12 minutes before halftime, creating five passes along the right from deep defence, with the cross going to Pontifex to clear, but the ball instead found Florian Woesch, who teed up a drive into goal.
Striker Nick Wilson grabbed a goal back for New Zealand 10min into the second half when he rattled home a sharp shot from the left.
The Germans answered almost immediately with a penalty corner goal by Martin Haner before Florian Fuch's backstick field goal put the match out of reach of the New Zealanders.
Simon Child gave New Zealand a glimmer of hope when he finished a movement with a tap in at the right post in the last five minutes only for Moritz Furste to provide the last goal for Germany.
McLeod praised the performance of two players in particular.
"Nick Wilson played well and caused Germany a lot of trouble and at the back Steve Edwards got through quite a lot of work today," he said.
German coach Markus Weise said the New Zealanders made his team work hard for their win.
"I could see that after New Zealand's last game they wanted to achieve a much better result, which they did," Weise said.
"While it was 5-2 on the scoreboard it was a much closer game than that."
In today's other games, Australia beat the Netherlands 6-3 and Spain drew 3-3 with England.
