Hopes were high for the home team as they had shown good form in their group games and hiped to replicate the British men's team that won gold at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games.

But those hopes were shot down in flames by a superior and clinical Dutch side (pictured top), which started superbly to race into a 2-0 lead inside 15 minutes.

Britain's Ashley Jackson gave the home fans hope as he grabbed a goal back for the hosts from a penalty corner, but the Netherlands' two goal cushion was restored moments later when Mink van der Weerden also scored from a penalty corner and Billy Bakker grabbed another for the Dutch to make it 4-1 just before the break.

The second half saw the Dutch put on a master class of counter attacking play as Bakker grabbed two more goals to complete his hat-trick while further goals from Teun de Noiijer, Floris Evers and Roderick Weusthof embarrassed the hosts to make it 9-1.

With the game well and truly over as a contest, Rob Moore scored a late consolation goal five minutes before the end, but ultimately it made little difference as the Dutch marched on emphatically to the final

"We're all very embarrassed for the result and mostly the performance," said head coach Jason Lee.

Ashley Jackson (centre) celebrates his goal during the men's Lonodn 2012 hockey semi-final match against the Netherlands

"Holland made the pitch very big for us and so we had lots of one-on-one battles early on and lost a lot of them."

"I think we were a little bit slack for a few of the goals but when it got to 4-1 our intention was to try and get back so we kept on trying to attack and that's what opened us up.

"We probably got reckless far too early and that's why the result went away."

"I said before we could finish first or ninth because we were willing to take risks.

"I think at 3-1 we had a chance, at 4-1 we still had a chance but we just let a couple of sloppy goals in because we were trying to get back into the game," he said.

"There's no other way.

"We could have just shut it down, kept it at 3-1 or 4-1 and it would have been a less embarrassing result, but it wouldn't have been what we said we were going to be about.

"Lots of goals get scored in international hockey and we didn't perform how we aimed to perform, but we did aim to win and that's why we got so exposed."

Roderick Weusth celebrates scoring his team's second London 2012 goal against Britain 

Team GB will now face Australia on Saturday (August 11) in the bronze medal match, and captain Barry Middleton said the team had to improve following the one-sided semi-final.

"Sorry, that wasn't really us tonight; it's hard to explain what happened.

"Credit to the Dutch, they played a good game.

"They just generally tackled, shot, ran around better than us."

"You don't have many games where a team does every aspect better than you.

"We were definitely not where we want to be or where we can be and that's the disappointing thing."

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