BRITAIN’S Olympic hockey campaign ended on a downer with defeat to Australia — but Worcester’s Rachel Walker insists the whole squad can leave Beijing with their head held high.

Goals from Madonna Blyth and Hope Munro gave the Hockeyroos the bragging rights and fifth place in the ranking decider.

But with qualification for the lucrative Champions Tro-phy, where they will compete as England, already sealed by their top — six finish, 29-year-old Walker maintains the team can keep going from strength to strength.

The Olton and West Warwickshire midfielder said: “We had a huddle at the end and said that as a team it has been a long 12 months.

“We have come together as a squad and it has been a long journey. We came to the tournament with a mindset of wanting to finish in the top six and qualify for the Champions Trophy.

“To get in the top six of the world is a great achievement and we have come a long way from four years ago where we failed to qualify for Athens.

“We have still got work to do but we have a long time to do it now. Playing in the Champions Trophy year after year means we can play against top opposition,” added the former Nunnery Wood and Sixth Form College student.

“We need to slowly but surely creep our way up and gain more experience of playing and beating against those top class sides.”

Britain made a lot of the early running against Aus-tralia — who they have not beaten in eight years — but were hit by a sucker punch just before the break when Blyth capitalised on some slack defending.

The game’s main talking point came just after halftime when Sarah Thomas’ strike from a short corner was ruled out for being too high.