Hockey: NZ coaches to give little away against arch rivals

Black Sticks coaches Shane McLeod and Mark Hager will not be showing too much when they play Australia in their first matches at the Oceania Cup in Invercargill this afternoon. But neither will the Australians.

With the transtasman rivals certain to meet in Saturday's all-important finals, today's games are, in the main, meaningless.

The Australian men opened their campaign with a 26-0 romp over Samoa, scoring 13 goals in each half. Jamie Dyer led the charge with five.

The Australian women raced to 12-0 at halftime before getting home 16-0 over the Samoan women in the late game.

The New Zealand women are first up today and while Hager wants his team "to do a job and play well" he is not expecting too much.

"It is important to get through without injuries," said Hager. "But we are not going to show them too much just as I expect they will go out with the same attitude. We will hold something back but at the same time we need to show them we can be a threat come the final.

"We trained well in Dunedin before coming down here and had a couple of worthwhile games against the Otago under-18 boys. I just hope now they don't get over-anxious or over-awed as this group haven't played Australia.

"We are still not finding the consistency we want but that only comes from playing more together. I feel I need to see them play 40 or 50 games to really find out who can play at this level," said Hager. "We haven't had anything like that yet."

McLeod watched the men's demolition of Samoa, saying he did not get much from the game apart from having the chance to look at a couple of new players.

"They played a controlled game, were clinical and created goal-scoring chances as you would expect," said McLeod. "I don't really see our game against Australia as being important. We will treat it more as a good training run."

For North Harbour defender Blair Hopping there is some significance as he joins the select group of players to claim 200 caps.

Of some interest for McLeod is the return of veteran centre-half Brent Livermore to the Australian team after being dropped for last year's Beijing Olympics.

"Charlie [Australian coach Ric Charlesworth] has always liked him so I wasn't surprised when he came back in," said McLeod. "He fits the style they want to play."

The women's game is at 1.15pm and the men 3.15pm today.