Hockey: Players link up in Auckland for the bumpy trip to Athens

By DAVID LEGGAT

New Zealand's Olympic-bound hockey men have given up their day jobs until they get back from Athens.

National coach Kevin Towns confirmed that all players in the squad from outside Auckland have moved to the city to train and play together as part of their build-up for the August Games.

The two exceptions are captain Simon Towns, who joins his team-mates on May 3, and Wellington's Umesh Parag, who is due to link up in early May just ahead of world No 11 New Zealand's first Games lead-up matches, either a four-game series against Queensland and Western Australia or a revived test rubber in Malaysia.

Towns said the squad of 20 would train together twice a week and have a practice game each week from this weekend. Players from outside Auckland and North Harbour have been assigned clubs to play for.

Auckland Indians have picked up penalty corner maestro Hayden Shaw, Mitesh Patel and Phil Burrows; Gareth Brooks is at Somerville; Wellington goalkeeper Kyle Pontifex is with Western and James Nation is with Auckland University.

For the second time, New Zealand's road to Athens has taken a diversion, but Towns is happy with what lies ahead.

World No 10 Malaysia were due to come to New Zealand for four tests, then pulled out. The sixth-ranked Indians were approached as replacements, but they have pulled the pin. Now Malaysia are back in the frame - but there, not here - and a four-game trip to Perth and Brisbane is likely for the May 17-30 period.

Whether Malaysia are interested again depends on whether they are in the World Cup qualifying tournament in China next March. If they are, they are likely to welcome New Zealand; if not, they are likely to pull out of the deal again. Their final answer is expected within a week.

Either way, New Zealand have no internationals on home turf before Athens. Towns acknowledged that was unfortunate, but pointed out that everything had to be geared to producing a positive result for the team.

"We've got to look to get a gain out of it," Towns said. "In Australia or Malaysia we will be in better temperatures than we would be at home. Playing state sides would be okay, although not as good as a test series."

New Zealand have a three-test series against world No 3 Australia, who are in their Olympic pool, in Darwin on June 13, 15 and 17, and from there they head to Barcelona with at least one, and probably two, internationals against world No 9 Spain.

Further tests against Argentina and Great Britain, ranked seventh and eighth respectively, are planned as New Zealand park themselves in the Catalan capital from about June 19 to August 5 before heading into the Olympic village.

New Zealand have pre-tournament games lined up against Korea on August 9, Pakistan a day later and world No 1 Germany on August 12.

New Zealand's pool opponents in Athens are Australia, Netherlands, India, Argentina and South Africa.