Keep calm and carry on was Phil Roper’s message after Team GB’s men’s hockey team salvaged a late 2-2 draw to prevent a shock defeat at the Olympics.

Rupert Shipperley equalised with just two minutes against the Pool A minnows, who are 10 places below them in the world rankings.

The men’s hockey team are sneaky gold medal contenders and started their campaign like a train with a 4-0 win against Spain.

This was a slight reality check but Roper is confident it is just a small bump in the road.

“When you are playing in an event like this, you cannot expect things to fall your way every single time,” he said.

“Saturday was brilliant, it felt like everything did fall our way but we can’t let our falls over drawing with a really good team.

“We have a day tomorrow to relax and re-set. The Olympics is incredibly intense and you need that period to go again.

“We have a huge under the sun against the Netherlands, who are world number one. We will give it a good go but there is nothing major for us to worry about.

“The games come thick and fast and it’s inevitable something will not go to plan. We move on.”

South Africa took an 11th-minute lead when Matthew Guise-Brown fired in at the fourth attempt after Ollie Payne made three excellent close-range saves following a penalty corner.

Roper levelled in similar circumstances just after the break but GB were unable to capitalise on the momentum, despite bossing large parts of the third quarter.

South Africa then caught them napping in defence, as Bradley Sherwood spun past one defender and coolly placed the ball into the net.

Team GB rolled the dice and replaced goalkeeper Payne with an outfield player for the final five minutes, and the gamble paid off when Shipperley flicked Sam Ward’s penalty corner into the net.

“We are a little bit frustrated. We know South Africa are always going to pose a bit of a threat and they did. It is a tough game when you go 1-0 down and we did well to come away with a point,” said Shipperley, who – along with his teammates – is one of over 1,000 athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme.

“We have a long way to go in the competition, but we will take a point. We train for those moments, we were calm in the huddles and it showed.

“We have got so many different threats off penalty corners and hopefully there are loads more to come.”

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