GB make winning start

Great Britain's men got their Olympic hockey campaign off to a winning start as they claimed a 4-1 victory over Argentina at the Riverbank Arena on Monday night.

Captain Barry Middleton led the way with strikes either side of half-time of their Pool A contest before Dan Fox, with his first international goal, and Richard Smith completed the job.

Even Pedro Ibarra's late penalty corner could not put a dampener on a game which showed glimpses of GB's best but was far from the complete performance.

In May, Argentina international Fernando Zylberberg, who was not selected for the Olympics because of fitness issues, caused controversy when he was used in a political television advert which depicted him running on the Falklands War Memorial.

Tension

And there was a distinctly tetchy feel to the match, especially in the first period with Matt Daly lucky not to be sin-binned for clattering into Ibarra just before the interval.

Before that GB had played most of the hockey and having an early Daly goal - correctly - overturned by the video umpire gave them all the encouragement they needed.

Both Rob Moore and Harry Martin failed to get a touch on Ben Hawes' driven cross but the breakthrough finally came in the 23rd minute when Daly won a penalty corner.

With regular set-piece specialist Ashley Jackson having a breather on the bench duties transferred to Smith and when his flick was saved by Juan Manuel Vivaldi captain Middleton was on hand to smash home the rebound.

Jackson then tested the goalkeeper with a reverse-stick shot before seeing his far-post dive narrowly fail to connect with James Tindall's cross.

There then followed a scuffle between players as things got niggly and the interval came at just the right time.

What was even more timely was Middleton's second goal in the 41st minute.

When Moore set up Jackson to run at the top of the circle it seemed certain he would drive in to shoot but instead he slipped it right and the captain moved the ball on to his reverse-stick before smashing home a low shot through the goalkeeper's legs.

Sin bin

Daly was sin-binned for a stick tackle before Agustin Mazzilli also earned a temporary suspension for a sliding tackle on Iain McKay.

While both teams were down to 10 men Fox scored his first international goal in his 43rd appearance after a brilliant break saw Jackson carry the ball half the length of the pitch before laying off for the Hampstead and Westminster player to drill home.

With Jackson off the pitch again Smith then succeeded where he had failed in the first half by beating Vivaldi from a penalty corner.

Argentina scored with a set-piece of their own with 15 minutes to go through Ibarra, who later became yet another to be sin-binned as the Argentinians lost their discipline, but it was not enough to spoil the hosts' party.

Dwyer delight

Also in Pool A, Australia striker Jamie Dwyer equalled his country's all-time goalscoring record with a hat-trick as the Kookaburras underlined their tag of Olympic gold medal favourites in hockey with a 6-0 victory over South Africa.

The five-time World Player of the Year took his tally to 179 in 279 matches and although they all came from set-pieces - two penalty strokes and a short corner - the 33-year-old's influence in the overall performance could not be under-estimated.

Dwyer went level with Mark Hager, who is at these Olympics as New Zealand women's coach, while Matthew Butturini, Chris Ciriello and Glenn Turner scored Australia's other three goals.

Honours even

Pakistan scored their first Olympic goal against Spain since the Barcelona Games of 1992 but it was only enough for a 1-1 draw in Pool A.

The Asian side had the better of the first half but penalty corner expert Sohail Abbas found goalkeeper Francisco Cortes in inspired form, tipping one effort onto the crossbar and saving another superbly with his stick.

But after the break Pakistan were gifted a goal when defender Sergi Enrique lost possession just outside his own 25-yard line and the ball was quickly transferred to Rehan Butt to fire an angled shot inside the far post.

However, Pakistan's celebrations had hardly died down when Spain equalised as Pau Quemada hammered a low reverse-stick shot inside Imran Shah's right-hand upright.

Dutch delight

In Pool B, Holland recovered from squandering a two-goal lead to just edge out eight-time Olympic champions India 3-2.

Rob van der Horst and Roderick Weusthof put the world number threes, back-to-back gold medallists in 1996 and 2000, 2-0 but Dharamvir Singh and Shivendra Singh levelled the scores.

Holland's response was almost immediate with Mink van der Weerden flicking in a high penalty corner.

Earlier in Pool B, South Korea registered their first Olympic victory over New Zealand at the third attempt with a 2-0 win.

The fixture was a repeat of their meeting on the opening day of the Beijing Olympics but the result was different as, four years ago, the Black Sticks came from behind to win.

You Hyo-sik was Korea's match-winner with both goals in the first half.