The New Zealand under 20's women's footballers have lost their opening match at their World Cup in France.
Hannah Blake Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The New Zealanders were beaten 2-1 by the Netherlands, with the Dutch scoring the winner in the 78th minute.
The Netherlands opened the scoring before New Zealand equalised just before half-time through Hannah Blake.
Coach Gareth Turnbull was disappointed with the result with matches against hosts France and Ghana still to come as they look to progress past pool play.
"We're obviously gutted about the result because we had a real belief we could get something from this game," Turnbull said after watching his side miss out on a point by conceding a late winner.
"The strategy was to be conservative in the first half to ensure we got into the half-time break still in the game, address the problems the Netherlands were creating - which I felt we did really well - and then really go at them in the second half," he added.
"I was pleased with the application and character shown by the girls during that second spell and, on a different day, we possibly could have won the game ourselves. You have to give real credit to the Netherlands though, they are an incredibly technical side with some fantastic players that caused us some real problems."
It looked like the Kiwis were on track to get at least a point on the board as the final ten minutes approached at 1-1 but Eva Van Deursen had other ideas, finding the bottom corner of Anna Leat's goal after being teed up on the edge of the area by some slick interplay.
"To be able to compete toe-to-toe for 90 minutes against one of the best teams in Europe really shows how far the development of female football is coming in New Zealand," Turnbull said.
"We must now switch our attention to ensure we recover well and then move on quickly so we can be ready to go and fight against France. We'll do everything in our control to ensure we're well-prepared and committed because we know we have to get a result against France if we're going to have any chance of getting out of this group."
New Zealand will take on France in their second match of the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup on Thursday on Thursday morning.
