Northland's many aspiring Black Sticks are getting a huge work-out this week as the team coach Kevin Towns puts an enlarged squad through its paces in a seven-match series against Korea.
The coach is taking no prisoners as he uses the series to choose his initial Olympic Games training squad of
20 players, which is due to be announced next week.
Black Sticks manager Debbie Balme said the results of the matches have been unimportant to the coach, compared with the importance of selecting the right players for the Beijing Olympics next year.
"The whole focus of these seven games has been the trials, to pick 20 players from the current 28 who are trialling, so trying new things has been the way to go," she said.
Towns has been rotating the players to see how they react in different positions - a tactic he is already well-known for.
"Kevin's not giving them the time to settle much, that's another dimension of the trial, they're not sure who'll they'll be playing out there with, from game to game, and we hope that has been a useful experience for both them and us," Balme said.
Northland has five of this season's NHL team playing in the trials with the province's only incumbent player Charlotte Harrison joined by Laura Douglas , Jasmin McQuinn , Kelsey Dunn and Anna Thorpe.
Thorpe, McQuinn and Dunn are new to the New Zealand senior set-up; they will have to play very well to make an impression on Towns but Balme said McQuinn in particular had been attracting interest this week.
"You wouldn't know that she's new to it all, she's slotted in really well and she's certainly got the hockey skills _ it will be interesting to see how she goes," Balme said.
McQuinn put in one of the outstanding performances in yesterday's 0-4 loss to the Koreans at Albany and had also impressed in game two of the series.
Harrison has also been in good scoring touch in the trial matches, even though the Black Sticks have been struggling for goals against a good South Korean side that is ranked above them.
The local side will be looking to finish the last of the unofficial internationals, today and tomorrow in Albany, on a winning note.
