Hockey: Practice reveals flaws

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Jan Borren was happy enough with the result, but the hockey coach will today be looking to improve aspects of the New Zealand women's 3-0 win over Canada in Perth yesterday.

"It was only a practice game but we did not play that well," said Borren.

"The concentration was not quite right. There were also problems with trapping, which was more as a result of their execution rather than any problems with the turf."

Northland defender Lizzy Igasan, who passed a late fitness test, played about 35 minutes and came through without any apparent problems with her injured calf.

While the players said it was quite warm after the morning match, Borren expects the conditions to be more difficult when they play Ireland in their final warm-up at 2pm (Perth time) today.

"Temperatures so far have been around 25 degrees but that is expected to reach 31 on Thursday and 37 by Friday."

Borren accepts that despite their fifth seeding, the team will be under pressure to perform.

"There are fives teams in our pool who will be chasing a place in the top two or, at worst, the top four," he said. "The games against Argentina, Korea, Germany and China will be very tough."