Hockey: Funding problem facing hockey

A full-time coach for the New Zealand women's hockey team would help, but funding was the bottom line, according to assistant coach Selwyn Maister.

Maister said a full-time coach would be a big help in assisting the women's team to improve their world ranking of sixth.

"But I don't know if we can afford a full-time coach," he said. "Money helps, but it doesn't always mean success."

Jan Borren, the coach of the women's team, was paid part-time in the build-up to the Olympics.

Whether the new coach, to be named next month, will be on a similar contract, has yet to be decided by the New Zealand Hockey Federation.

Maister said the Great Britain women's team had five full-time staff with them in Sydney and for their Olympic lead-up.

"They spent megabucks and finished 10th [of 10 teams]," he said.

Olympic champions Australia had six full-time staff attached to the side, but Maister said their success was based on an excellent programme with a wide base of players.

"The Australians are well established and we've got to realise we're not going to afford what they have," he said.

Before the Olympics, Australia and the Netherlands were regarded as being ahead of the other nations in ability. Maister said that had changed.

"Australia are now clearly in front of everyone else, but I think we are clearly established in the top six now," he said.

"Two years ago at the World Cup you could say we scraped into the top six but we won our pool in Sydney, and it was a huge disappointment that we didn't play for a medal."

Maister described as an appalling error the decision by an English umpire to change a free hit in the dying seconds which allowed Spain to level their medal pool match at 2-2.

' Former captain Anna Lawrence said that decision was a bigger blow to the team than they realised at the time.

"The next game against Argentina was such a huge moment in our careers but we couldn't perform," she said. "That was a real disappointment and because we had been in the limelight we felt that we let people down.

"But we have had amazing support even after the event."

- NZPA