Hockey: Players aim for better showing

By TERRY MADDAFORD

A disappointed New Zealand men's team will attempt to turn it around when they meet Poland in the second test in Whangarei this afternoon.

While reasonably happy with their 3-1 opening victory, New Zealand coach Kevin Towns said the players were looking for something better in what could be the series clincher.

The third test is tomorrow.

"As a team they were disappointed," Towns said yesterday. "I'm sure there will be an improvement from both sides. We played like a team who looked like they were coming off a heavy workload, which was the case."

Towns gave his players the day off yesterday, but he and assistant Charlie Oscroft took some time out to analyse the tape of Thursday night's game.

They would have seen that New Zealand had 60 per cent of first-half possession, but only 40 per cent after the break, despite the visitors being reduced to nine players at one stage.

Towns would also be disappointed to see that even when two short, the Poles were able to breach the New Zealand defensive circle and work into scoring positions.

Despite having three players in the sin bin, Towns said it was not a dirty game.

"There were just a couple of pretty agricultural tackles. But that really came down to interpretation."

Captain Simon Towns was rested for 20 minutes in the first spell following a whack on the knee, but recovered to play the second spell.

James Nation, in his return from injury, got through the game, but was a little sore yesterday.

Only Lloyd Stephenson, one of New Zealand's goalscorers, has injury problems. "We may rest him for a day and see how his knee ligament injury responds," Towns said. "We could shuffle things around for Sunday's game."

While reasonably satisfied with the one-from-three success rate at penalty corners (converted by Hayden Shaw), Poland were none-from-one.

Towns has some minor concerns with Blair Hopping's failure to convert a penalty stroke.

"That is something we will have a look at. Strokes might become very important at the Olympic qualifiers so we have to be ready," he said. "We have Dean Couzins, James Nation, Phil Burrows and Wayne McIndoe as back-up to Hayden Shaw if we need to call on them."

Both matches this weekend start at 3pm at the ITM Rosval Hockey Centre in Whangarei.