Hockey: Olympic preparations anything but smooth

By DAVID LEGGAT

New Zealand men's hockey coach Kevin Towns is facing significant disruptions to his team's final Olympic selection tour.

The original party of 18 is now down to 15 before a ball has been struck in anger.

The New Zealanders are in Perth for a four-game series against an Australian Institute team starting tonight.

However, the group lost defender Dean Couzins, who suffered a broken ankle just before the team departed and undergoes surgery today.

Towns has his fingers crossed the operation, in which a screw will be inserted to help the Aucklander's ankle heal as quickly as possible, goes well.

He expects to know the prognosis by Wednesday.

Now Wellington attackers Mitesh Patel and Umesh Parag have had to return home after a family bereavement.

They would not have returned until the final game on Friday and Towns did not see the value in flying them back for one game.

And on top of that, he intends to tread carefully with Auckland midfielders Ryan Archibald and captain Simon Towns, both of whom are on the recovery path after lengthy injury layoffs.

Towns has not played since the final Olympic qualifying tournament in Madrid in March, and Archibald has had just 20 minutes of action, eight days ago, since Madrid.

Kevin Towns intends using the pair for no more than about half an hour in each game.

All four games will be played as trial matches of four quarters.

With the final 16 for the Athens Olympics due to be named before they head to Australia for a test series in July, this is the final chance for the borderline contenders to put their hand up.

"It's really coming down to the last two or three places in the group and those players are aware of that," Towns said last night.

He said he would tinker with some positions as he assessed the players during the four-game series this week.