by Alex Hoad at the Riverbank Arena

Ashley Jackson cut a disconsolate figure despite scoring a brace to spare Great Britain’s blushes in a 2-2 draw with unfancied South Africa at the Riverbank Arena on Wednesday night.

The 24-year-old West Malling star (pictured) opened the scoring with a thunderous penalty corner conversion on 14 minutes, having won the corner himself by picking up a loose ball and dancing into the D, evading defenders and drawing a save from keeper Erasmus Pieterse with a low drive.

At that stage all looked good for GB, but their confidence appeared to gradually ebb away in the 10 minutes either side of the break and in the second half you could feel an equaliser coming.

It eventually arrived inside the final 10 minutes when skipper Austin Smith rattled in a low penalty corner conversion.

The initially raucous home crowd had lost their gusto by that stage and there looked to be only one winner long before SA turned the game on its head with an individual goal from Jonathan Robinson five minutes from time.

However from somewhere GB found the resolve to launch a wave of attacks and they found a scrappy equaliser with less than three minutes remaining, Jackson’s stick deflecting a driven effort from distance into a defender’s foot and into the net, with the goal given after a nervous wait for the video official to give it the OK.

There was still time for GB to win a penalty corner, but a trademark Jackson bullet was superbly saved by Pieterse with the last touch of the game.

Jackson admitted: "I am really disappointed, really annoyed. We covered it up at the end, but it was not a good performance from us today.

"We gave them chances which they then took.They shouldn’t be able to live with us. We didn’t turn up and let them run the game really."

Asked if they lost concentration after the break, he added: "I’m not sure it was just the second half, it was kind of building from when we went 1-0 up I think."

He explained: "No excuses, but there’s a big emotional downer after the first game (Monday's 4-1 win over Argentina). We’d been waiting for the last game for so long, we got the win we were going for and it took a lot out of us.

"We should have won. It could have been worse, I guess. We could have covered it all up at the end with that corner."

He said he was oblivious to his role in the equaliser, adding: "I’m not sure, the ball just flashed in, there were bodies and people everywhere."

Next-up for GB is a clash with Pakistan on Friday afternoon (4pm), which Jackson says is a must-win ahead of Sunday night’s massive clash with powerhouse Australia.

He said: "Australia are the team that are going to steamroller quite a lot of the rest of the teams, and we’ve got to go toe-to-toe with them.

"We’re looking forward to that, but there’s another game to go before we can think about that.

"We have to make sure we really do turn up against Pakistan with a professional performance and get the three points before we go into that Australia game."