Holland captain Giovanni van Bronckhorst wants his team to continue working hard following yesterday's opening World Cup victory against Denmark.

The Dutch moved top of Group E with a 2-0 win over their fellow north Europeans at Soccer City thanks to an own goal from Daniel Agger and a late Dirk Kuyt strike.

It put them in pole position to qualify for the next round, despite potentially tricky ties against Japan and Cameroon still to come.

For Van Bronckhorst, the game highlighted their efforts over the past few years, with the win leaving him extremely satisfied.

"We're very happy (with the result)," he said. "To start the tournament with a win is very important because it will give the players confidence and we are looking forward to the second game against Japan.

"This team has played already four to six years with each other and we're really happy with the way things are going now.

"You just have to keep on working hard to get to where you want to go."

Holland have never won the title, despite twice reaching the final, in 1974 and 1978.

The Feyenoord defender did not want to make any predictions about 2010, only saying that they needed to continue with the hard work.

He added: "We're confident in ourselves, but we have to keep working hard and believing in ourselves.

"I think we have a team that is very difficult to beat.

"We just have to maintain our form and make sure that when things maybe aren't going our way, we can still fight back."

Martin Jorgensen, who captained the Danes in the absence of injured skipper Jon Dahl Tomasson, felt the key moment in the game came less than a minute into the second half.

By that stage, the Scandinavians had repelled everything the Dutch had thrown at them, but Agger's own goal helped break the deadlock.

"The goal came at an important time and it was a big blow for us," he said. "We were talking about it at half-time that we should keep focused for the first 15-20 minutes and we surely get our chances.

"But that goal affected us and we couldn't come back.

"Before that it was good to get started in a great stadium like this, it was great to play. The first half was okay, but the second half was worse."

But the midfielder warned that his team should not be written off, adding: "We're still in it.

"We just have to win our next two games and we'll have to go in confident to get the right results."