Oxfordshire's Sarah Thomas reflected on a crazy two days after helping Great Britain’s women to a hockey bronze at London 2012.

The 31-year-old, from Henley, scored the third goal in a 3-1 play-off victory over New Zealand at the Riverbank Arena.

Two days ealier, Thomas and her teammates were gutted after losing out on a chance of gold following their 2-1 semi-final defeat to Argentina.

But on Thursday, she could not hide her delight after bagging Britain's first Olympic women’s hockey medal since 1992.

“It’s unreal,” said Thomas. “It’s the strangest feeling ever, but I am just going to enjoy every single second of this.

“The crowd, not just today, but the whole two weeks, have been amazing.

“The surge when you are running forward and hear them screaming for you is just unbelievable.”

Thomas added: “It has been a crazy 48 hours. If I am honest, yesterday was horrific for me after losing to Argentina.

“I haven’t felt like that in a long, long time.

“That was enough motivation to go out there today and just make sure it happened.

“Everyone else felt the same. I think we showed what we were about and we weren’t going to let it go.”

Leading scorers Alex Danson and Crista Cullen put Britain 2-0 up before Thomas added the final flourish.

She deflected in captain Kate Walsh's penalty corner flick in a move Britain had practised repeatedly.

Thomas said: “I have been doing it in training for the couple of weeks and it’s been going really, really well, so I was hoping I would get a shout on that.

“When I did, I realised ‘I actually have to make this happen’.”

And she did with aplomb.