by Alex Hoad at the Riverbank Arena

Canterbury Hockey Club star Jen Wilson was left devastated after South Africa were crushed 7-1 by Argentina in their opening game of the Olympics at the Riverbank Arena on Sunday evening.

The South American side raced into a 2-0 lead and although Wilson (pictured) helped her side pull one back on the counter-attack with a low cross for a diving Dirkie Chamberlain to convert, it was 5-1 at the break and two goals in the closing stages sealed their fate.

Wilson, 33, admitted: "It was devastating. It was such a disappointing start for us. We’ve been looking good in practice but unfortunately we didn’t get out of the starting blocks.

"If you do that against a team like Argentina then you’re in big trouble and they punished us."

Next up for South Africa is a clash with New Zealand – who upset Australia 1-0 in their opening game – on Tuesday morning.

Wilson insisted: "We’ve definitely got to leave that behind us. It doesn’t get any worse than that. We can only go up from here.

"It’s a mental thing. We’ve got to turn the switch. That’s all it’s going to take. We’ve got to come out and play hockey. We didn’t play hockey in the first half today.

"If that happens then you’re in a lot of trouble."

She however added: "The atmosphere here is brilliant. It was a great crowd to play infront of - fantastic. Hopefully we can give them a bit more to support in game two."

The victory was Argentina’s biggest ever win over South Africa.