Hockey: Turnaround victory for NZ

By Terry Maddaford

National men's hockey coach Robin Wilson stopped short of threatening his players' international futures, but admitted there had been some strong words spoken before the New Zealand men's hockey team beat Australia 3-2 in Brisbane yesterday.

Stung by Saturday's 0-6 hiding, the New Zealanders, their hopes of winning the Oceania Cup and with it direct entry to next year's Olympics gone, went out to save face and snap a long losing streak against the Kookaburras.

Shrugging off suggestions that the Australians were not too serious about the third and last game in the series, Wilson said the home side were at full strength.

"They put out their best players but I would have to say they did not play as well as they had on Saturday, while we definitely played better," he said. "I did not have to tell the players their future in the New Zealand side was at stake, but they all went out and contributed to a solid team performance."

New Zealand went ahead after 13 minutes when Greg Russ capped a good right-wing move with a well-taken goal. But Ryan Archibald missed a stroke which would have made it 2-0.

Accepting that let-off, Australia stormed back and goals to Troy Elder and Jay Stacey had the home side 2-1 ahead at halftime.

Umesh Parag deflected home the equaliser and then provided the build-up for the winner, which Bevan Hari tapped home.

In Saturday's game, Australia scored three in each half to make certain of their series victory.

Wilson is now looking ahead to the last-ditch qualifying tournament in Osaka, Japan, next year.

"I'll sit down with the other selectors when I get home and go over things," he said. "We are allowed to take 18 players to these tournaments and I'll be strongly recommending that. We had only 16 players here and one, Craig Russ, did not take any part because of injury.

"If New Zealand are serious about qualifying for the Olympics we must have 18 players in future."

New Zealand Hockey Federation chief executive Ramesh Patel is looking for games in September-October. A four-match home series against Britain has already been confirmed for January.