Hockey: Form slump leaves Black Sticks' coach looking for a new recipe

Coach Mark Hager. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The harsh realities are starting to hit home in the Black Sticks' camp.

The much-heralded bronze medal at last year's women's Champions Trophy has been tarnished with a disappointing sixth place at this year's tournament.

And, unless there is a dramatic turnaround, the team once touted as an Olympic medal hope will again finish in or around the top six and be left lamenting what might have been.

Coach Mark Hager, euphoric after last June's medal effort and justifiably happy with October's Oceania Cup win over Australia, was not hiding his disappointment at his team's showing in Argentina.

"I am definitely frustrated," said Hager. "Along with the players, I have to look at myself. There is plenty to look at. Perhaps we did not prepare to 100 per cent, the players were out of form - and out of season - and we walked into a tournament where our opposition was much better prepared. While for most the tournament came in their season, it did not for Korea - but they went to Argentina for two to three weeks to prepare. Our players were not ready."

The statistics back Hager's disappointment.

Scoring from only three of 24 penalty corners is not going to win anything. Neither will conceding 14 goals in six games or having 80-plus turnovers in all but one of your matches.

In 69 internationals in the past two years, the Black Sticks have won 30 and lost 27. But when only matches against the leading Olympic contenders, Holland, Argentina, Germany and England, are considered the statistics do not make pretty reading.

In 24 matches against this quartet there have been five wins, five draws and 14 losses.

While accepting the facts, and admitting his players did not trap and pass at the level required, Hager remains optimistic.

"I have a real belief we can still perform at the highest level. We had too many players out of form in Argentina, we were poor in our set plays and in the attacking third particularly against Germany and Holland," he said.

"I could have lived with the results against Germany (1-3) and Holland (0-3) but not with going 2-0 down in 10 minutes with very soft goals against Japan.

That was hard to take. We could not put three or four passes together."

Hager is already talking changes - perhaps with as many as half of the present team struggling to make it to London.

"We can't play the way we did and expect to carry on.

"We can look at who we lost - players like Laura Douglas, Anna Thorpe and Jan Burrows - that's experience that's hard to replace.

"We also have to make a step up from what is a pretty weak club competition to compete internationally. Maybe the girls need to play in a men's competition. At one stage I looked at our bench and they were all under 20. The past four years have and will continue to be a learning curve.

"We have to put a plan in place. The start of the season hasn't been good but we have a chance when we play Argentina to start turning things around."

For a team who have enjoyed huge support under Hager and produced some decent results, that turnaround can't come soon enough.