WORCESTER’s Rachel Walker helped Great Britain women’s team keep their Olympic hopes alive — but they did it the hard way.

After a 5-1 hammering by defending champions Germany in their opening match, British coach Danny Kerry had demanded some fighting spirit against world number two Argentina.

His players duly obliged, fighting back from two goals down to take their first point of the tournament in a 2-2 draw.

“It is always nice to come back from two-nil down, it feels like a win sometimes even though it is not,” said Walker.

“Even when we were two goals down, I still thought that we had a real chance. It’s a big positive for us to prove that we can fightback like that. We knew we could get a result and that will fill us with confidence.”

Argentina took the lead when Agustina Garcia fired home from an acute angle and Britain were reeling when Alejandra Gulla doubled the advantage with a sweetly struck lifted shot.

However, some strong half-time words from Kerry had an inspiring effect.

Two goals inside minutes from Sarah Thomas and Mel Clelow put Britain, bronze medalists at the 1992 Olym-pics and ranked tenth in the world before the Games, on level terms.

But Argentina rallied and only a succession of saves by British keeper Beth Storry maintained the deadlock in a nervy final ten minutes.

“They outplayed us in the first-half but I thought our superior fitness would see us through in the end, although it was a very tough battle,” added Walker.

“We just need to keep our foot on the accelerator now and try to cut out the basic mistakes. We’ve drawn against the second best side in the world and really worn them down in the end. We’ve got a day to recover and then we need to up our levels again.”

Great Britain now face a make-or-break match against New Zealand on Thursday before final matches against Japan and the United States.

Britain beat the Black Sticks twice in a pre-Olympic warm-up tournament in Hong Kong but Kerry is refusing to be complacent.

“They’ve got to put that out of their minds,” he said. “They were missing quite a few of their main players and the results of pre-Olympic friendlies can be meaningless.

“Matches with New Zealand are usually decided by one goal and I’m sure it’s going to be another humdinger.”