Hockey: Men blitz Barbados to set up comfort zone

The men's team surpassed their 11-goal target for their pool match yesterday when they hammered Barbados 13-0.

"When we went into the game we knew we had to get 11 goals to go into the final match of our pool with South Africa," New Zealand coach Kevin Towns said.

"We managed to achieve that. It's not an easy task when you know you have to get that many goals. But I think the guys did a very good job."

In earlier pool matches, Barbados lost 10-1 to South Africa and South Africa went down 4-1 to Australia, a better result than New Zealand's 6-1 hiding at the hands of the tournament favourites.

Australia are sure to advance directly from the pool to the semifinals and the second and third-placed teams in each pool play cross-over matches, second-placed teams from one pool playing third-placed teams in the other.

New Zealand are aiming to finish the pool second to avoid facing either Pakistan or England in the cross-over series.

If New Zealand and South Africa are tied on points after the pool matches are completed, placings are determined first on goal difference and then on goals scored.

New Zealand raced to a 7-0 lead at halftime, with Hayden Shaw scoring three times from four penalty corner attempts in the first spell.

Midfielder Ryan Archibald top-scored with four goals, three from the field and one from a penalty corner.

Wayne McIndoe, Umesh Parag, Philip Burrows, Mitesh Patel, David Kosoof and Darren Smith also lined up for goals against the skimpy Barbados defence.

Towns gave all his players a run at some stage.

"They did what they had to do. They came through unscathed with no injuries and when you get scores like that at these tournaments, without India and Malaysia, you have to question it," he said.

Only one nation, Pakistan, has been allowed to represent the Asian region in the tournament. Towns said a similar "ridiculous" situation resulted in Cuba being ranked seventh at the World Cup, even though they had not been to an international tournament for years.

New Zealand need a win against South Africa tomorrow to have the easier semifinal draw, but do not expect an easy ride.

- NZPA

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