Hockey: Blow as Hari banned

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Coach Kevin Towns was battling mixed emotions after New Zealand surrendered a halftime lead then held on to finish 1-1 with Belgium in their first post-section game at the World Cup qualifying tournament in Edinburgh.

As the other game in their pool, between Spain and Canada, also ended in a 1-1 draw early yesterday, New Zealand are still in contention. But they will go into tonight's key game against unbeaten Spain without the influential Bevan Hari, who was sent off in the last minute of the game against Belgium after clashing with Thomas van den Balck and must miss the game.

"Bevan was unlucky," said Towns. "He was tackled badly and the two players' sticks got caught up. Because the other guy had already had a yellow card, he knew he was in danger of getting a red so he went down holding his head claiming he had been hit.

"But when a doctor examined him after the game there was no evidence of that. Bevan was then handed a one-match suspension on the basis of misconduct."

With Hari, a key attacker in the team, out tonight, Mitesh Patel will get a start and David Kosoof will have more game time.

Towns is also unhappy at the tournament format which he claims treats some teams unfairly. His views seem to have found support as the International Hockey Federation yesterday decided to revert to the two-pool, eight-team format in future rather than the four-pool, four-team schedule.

"Our third post-section game against Canada could now be vital but we will have to back-up and play them 24 hours after we have played Spain whereas Canada go into that game after a day's rest."

In another change , goalkeeper Paul Woolford is likely to return tonight after Michael Bevin, who had a relatively quiet game against Belgium, failed to keep out the equalising penalty corner - a shot which Towns said was "certainly savable."

In post-section games , Argentina beat India 5-3 while Japan and Poland drew 0-0.