Johannesburg - The South African men’s hockey team went down 3-1 to Great Britain in the second Test at Stellenbosch on Tuesday night.

The 2 000-strong crowd of South African supporters went into raptures when the boys in green and gold shot into a 1-0 lead in the 44th minute through KZN Coastal Raiders striker Marvin Harper’s reverse-stick deflection.

But South Africa’s joy was short-lived as the visitors hit back with three strikes inside seven minutes to win the match.

Richard Smith (55th), Harry Martin (57th) and Jonty Clark (61st) did the damage for Great Britain.

The result leaves the three-Test series level 1-1 with the decider to take place on Saturday.

South African head coach Gregg Clark was disappointed with the result, but heartened at the manner in which his side has been mixing it with a world top four team during the last two matches.

The visitor's scored three goals when they were down to 10 men while their first two goals, within 90 seconds off each other, let them off the hook.

“But for the fourth-ranked team in the world to have to dig so deep to beat the world’s 12th-ranked team means we are really happy with what we are doing at the moment,” said Clark.

Great Britain scored one penalty corner, a field goal, which started off from the baseline and a third via a counter-attack, and Clark felt two of those opportunities might have been prevented had South Africa managed the situation better.

“The guys are really disappointed but credit to GB, they were marginally better in the second half.”

South Africa play top Dutch club Pinoke of Amsterdam at 7pm at Hartleyvale on Thursday before tackling Great Britain in the final Test at the same venue at 6pm on Saturday, while the second clash with Pinoke at midday on Sunday wraps up the Western Cape international series. - Sapa