OLYMPICS LONDON 2012: Moore delighted with opening win

By Ben Burrows, Sportsbeat, London 2012

GREAT Britain’s Rob Moore was delighted with his side’s performance as the men’s hockey team opened up their London 2012 campaign in the best possible fashion.

CELEBRATION: Men's hockey team enjoy comfortable opening victory against Argentina

The two-time Olympian helped the hosts overwhelm the South Americans 4-1, as captain Barry Middleton scored twice while Dan Fox and Richard Smith also registered on a comfortable night at the Riverbank Arena.

And the 31-year-old revealed they were really happy to overcome an Argentine side who they lost to earlier this year.

"We can be very happy with how we played tonight, we knew Argentina were going to be a really tricky opening game,” the European Championships gold and bronze medallist said.

“We played them a couple of months ago out in Malaysia and lost 3-2 to them, so we knew it wasn't going to be easy.

“Pretty important to get a good start, there are no spare games at this tournament so you have to start strong. We're really, really happy.

"Argentina are a very good side, they're well organised and they're very good defensively, so they're always going to be difficult to break down.

“We wouldn't have wanted to go behind to them, so it was great that we just ground it out, we got ahead and then once we were ahead it opened up a little bit more and we managed to capitalise on that.

"It was incredible. It was something you don't get very often as hockey players and certainly not as hockey players in this country, for us it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Full-back Dan Fox was delighted to grab his first international goal at an Olympic Games but admitted there is still much to work on in their bid to improve on their Beijing fifth place.

"Absolutely brilliant, no better time to score I guess,” said the Hampstead and Westminster man.

“We knew that the first game of the tournament was one where you need to get into the swing of things, but actually we were pretty pleased with that.

"We had a lot of shots on target and quite a few balls flashing across goal, so if you put those away in international hockey you win by three or four goals every game, so that's where we need to improve in the next match.”

Team GB’s second Olympics game will be on August 1 against South Africa.

© Sportsbeat 2012