Jason Lee held the most emotionally charged team meeting of his life yesterday morning. He could not contain his tears as he read out a message from a group of disadvantaged teenagers, who put an Olympic medal into its proper perspective.

Thirty children from the sink estates of Tower Hamlets, who have formed themselves into a group named the Fre Flyers, have been mentored by Lee and his GB men's hockey squad over the past two years.

"Thank you for sharing your lives and values with us" they wrote. "Thank you for teaching us about teamwork, respect, and never giving up. Thank you for staying together, and always striving to be the best."

No further team talk was required. Lee successfully lobbied officials to get the children tickets for the bronze medal match against Australia, whose 3-1 win lacked the traumatic impact of Thursday's 9-2 semi-final defeat by Holland.

Everyone dies a little when they lose at the sharp end of an Olympic tournament. Lee's men had a mere 44 hours to recover from that Dutch defeat, which appeared to unravel seven years' work.

No one knew better the challenge facing them than the man who ultimately inflicted further pain, Australian coach Ric Charlesworth.

He is the Renaissance Man of modern sport, having punctuated a stellar coaching career, in hockey, cricket and Australian Rules football, with spells as a politician and surgeon.

Charlesworth admitted: "I feel for the GB team. The interesting thing about coaching is that you have to trouble the comfortable, and comfort the troubled."

Charlesworth empathised with Lee's task. The GB squad, conditioned to understanding their responsibilities to one another, and the sport as a whole, had nowhere to hide.

"There was a lot of grieving, which we encouraged out into the open as quickly as possible," their performance director David Faulkner said. "We had to confront it, manage it, and change the mind set."

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