Black Sticks survive Chile scare to win in fine fashion

By Peter Thorley A HAT-TRICK to Simon Child kept New Zealand in the third hockey test against Chile until a fourth-quarter revival saw the Black Sticks ease away from the tourists to win a torrid encounter 5-3 in Whangarei yesterday.
Child twice put his side ahead in the match but his third goal was an equaliser, after it had become apparent that the Chileans had improved by a quantum leap after their 6-0 drubbing in the first test on Thursday.
The Blacks Sticks looked out of sorts for much of the first spell and it wasn't until Chile took a 3-2 lead in the 51st minute that they began to find the fluidity of play that characterised their wins in the first two matches of the series.
Black Sticks coach Shane McLeod said his team finally found the desire and passion to win in the second half.
"It's easy to get into a situation where a team gets on top of you and really great sides come back from that ... that's what you have to do. But it's not so easy to do when the pressure is on - so I'm happy they experienced that today because that's the first time we've been in that situation," he said.
Chile started at pace and had forced four saves from goalkeeper Kyle Pontifex before they had a shot of their own.
"It wasn't a great start - we had a few errors and fundamental things that went wrong early in the game and we struggled to correct them and get dominance in the game. It probably wasn't until the last 15-20 minutes when, by necessity, we started to do the things that are characteristic of how we play," McLeod said.
New Zealand struggled throughout most of the match to break through the vastly improved Chilean defence that played with passion.
"Chile are quite physical and that becomes a bit of a leveller ... if you don't match them physically, then you don't get to use your skill and our guys got pushed around a little bit our there.
"They are a fairly defensive sort of team but that's what we are going to strike when we get into the qualifiers. One of our aims in this game was to try and stretch them out a bit, and it didn't work so well in the first half," McLeod said.
Chile twice came from behind to level the match with a field goal to Estaban Krainz and a simple but effective penalty corner variation by Matias Amoroso. Midfield dynamo Sebastian Kapsch capitalised on another Black Sticks turnover to lay on a goal for Jan Ritcher.
Child's hat-trick goal settled some nerves, and he had a hand in setting up the side's two goals, scored by David Kasoof and Ben Collier, that finally subdued the plucky Chileans.
"I think the goals we scored were really good goals but there's definitely a concern that a team ranked 10 places below us in the world shouldn't be scoring goals against us, and certainly not three of them," McLeod said.
McLeod did rest two of his best players, with Blair Hopping and Phil Burrows on the sideline for the match. The two teams now head to Pukekohe for the fourth and final match of the series tomorrow night.