KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's push for a semifinal spot in the men's hockey is being fuelled by a coaching triumvirate playing the roles of good cop, bad cop and somewhere-in-between cop.
The Kiwis convincingly beat Belgium 4-2 on Friday night and are expected to beat a surprisingly competitive Chinese team today. That, given the muddled results in the pool so far, could put them in the semifinals, regardless of how they do against Germany in their final match.
Germany drew 3-3 against South Korea on Friday, following on from a draw against lowly Belgium, leaving then on five points, one behind New Zealand with two to play.
The perfect quinella today for Shane McLeod's team would be to beat China, have Spain beat Germany and Korea and Belgium draw. That would leave Spain on a maximum 12 points, New Zealand nine, Germany five, Korea five with Belgium and China in the rear. New Zealand would then, at the very least, be playing off for bronze on Saturday.
A lot of their success to date could be put down to the preparation of their coaches, skipper Ryan Archibald said.
In McLeod New Zealand has the softly spoken organiser, well respected in the hockey community for the immediate improvements he's made to the side.
Former South African striker Greg Nicol, the forwards coach, has a huge database of information inside his head and on his laptop and has a sharp tongue to boot. "He's a fiery guy," Archibald said of Nicol, "a confident guy, a good coach and level-headed, but he certainly lets you know what he expects."
But Darren Smith, a former team-mate of many of the team, can be the harshest judge, Archibald said. "Our bad cop is Darren Smith, our defensive and set-play coach. He's the less-relaxed of the three. He's a good friend to a lot of us but he winds up at us at times. Shane's pretty relaxed."
Friday was a bit of a triumph for Nicol, who has worked hard at getting strikers into positions to score field goals, rather than just rely on Hayden Shaw penalty corners for goals. All four against Belgium were scored from the field, two to Simon Child and one each to Gareth Brooks and Shea McAleese.
"He works really hard on our forwards, getting them in the right positions to score a lot of tip-in goals," Archibald said. "I guess we've looked at Australia and how many field goals they score and modelled ourselves a bit on them in terms of getting into the right positions inside the circle."
Meanwhile, the Black Sticks - again wearing a sky blue more appropriate for Uruguay than a New Zealand team - went from worse to woeful, crashing 1-4 to a US team that did little more than turn up to win. The Americans led 1-0 after 25 seconds when Keli Smith scored on a weak shot that crept under Beth Jurgeleit's foot.
Things never improved, despite Lizzy Igasan's penalty corner bringing the scores back to 1-2 shortly after the half. The Black Sticks, who have four losses from four, now face one of the pre-tournament favourites Argentina in their final pool match.
