Cape Town - The Investec South Africa women's hockey team suffered the injustice of conceding two illegitimate Korean goals as they went down 5-3 in their final Pool B match at the Hockey World Cup in Rosario, Argentina on Monday night after the scores were 1-1 at half-time.

In the early match, China beat Spain 6-0 and South Africa will be playing for ninth position at 18:30 (SA time) on Friday against New Zealand or Japan, to be determined after Tuesday's final round of Pool A matches.

"We had one of our best performances on Monday and put a lot of pressure on the Koreans," said South Africa head coach Giles Bonnet. "We created a lot of chances and put ourselves in the position of being 3-1 up. We need to learn how to play when we are in a situation like this."

The scores read 1-1 at half-time with South Africa's Sulette Damons and Korea's Seon Mi Park getting on the scoresheet with a penalty stroke that shouldn't have been awarded.

Two goals by Cindy Botha  put SA 3-1 up during the second half but a Korean blitzkrieg towards the end, which included an illegitimate penalty corner goal, dashed world number 12 Investec South Africa's hopes of a shot at seventh place.

Korea's goalscorers during this blitz were Bo Mi Kim, Seul Ki Cheo, Young Ran Kim and Mi Hyun Park.