Out of contention for a top-five finish after three consecutive defeats, India would be desperate to end their losing streak when they take on lowly but spirited South Africa in their last pool B match of the hockey World Cup in New Delhi on Monday. A win against South Africa on Monday will not only give the ardent hockey fans something to cheer about but also secure India's place in the seventh-eighth place play-off match, which would definitely be a considerable improvement from their 11th place finish in the 2006 World Cup in Monchengladbach, Germany.However, achieving it won't be a cake-walk as South Africa are on a high after registering their first-ever victory in the World Cup. After stunning Pakistan 4-3 in their last match, the Proteas would be looking for another upset and going by their performance in the last encounter, the possibility is not a distant dream. The Indians don't seem to have learnt from their past mistakes as for the third consecutive match, the home team committed the same blunders which put paid to their hopes in the tournament.The Indian defence yet again crumbled under pressure and on more than one occasion found itself in a hole.Like in the earlier two games, the home team was on the back-foot from the beginning after conceding early soft goals. The Indians left plenty of open spaces in the field, man-to-man marking seemed to have gone for a toss. To add to it, horrible trapping, mindless passing and unnecessary dribbling continued unabated. And if they continue the same, a rude shock may await them on Monday in the form of South Africa.While Sandeep Singh and Dhanjay Mahadik continued to be failures in penalty corner conversions. But Gurbaz Singh, Arjun Halappa and captain Rajpal Singh will look to carry on their good showing against the South Africans. "We did not learn from the past mistakes against Spain. The first goal we conceded was similar to the one Spain scored against us. If you commit these kind of mistakes at the top level competitions you have to pay for it."But all these cannot be changed in a short time. We need many more matches at the top level to rectify all these mistakes. We did not have that in the build-up to the World Cup. Seven months is too short to sort out those things and without playing international matches," India coach Jose Brasa had said.However, there are some positives that India can draw from the England encounter.