Bhubaneswar, Dec 11 (IANS): Netherlands captain Robert van der Horst was all praise for Pakistan's solid defence saying the Asian country "defended like lions" in their 4-2 win over the Dutch in the hockey Champions Trophy quarter-final here Thursday.

Horst said his team did not play its best game and did not threaten the opposition goal much.

“I believe we didn’t play our best game. Pakistan gave us a hard job, they defended like lions. They conceded less goals than we did because they defended harder than we attacked," said Horst.

Horst stated that they gave away too many easy penalty corners to Pakistan, and it was not acceptable for the team to lose back-to-back matches.

“We got too many easy penalty corners against us. We lost as a result of ourselves, this is not good. I don’t think the Netherlands should lose two games in succession to India and Pakistan, this is not the way Holland should play,” he added.

He also said that they had learnt a lesson from Thursday’s match and would like to make sure that the mistakes were not repeated again.

“Today we got a lesson we have to deal with and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s very disappointing, we have to do better next time,” said the 30-year old.