KEY POINTS:
BEIJING - After taking plenty of stick at the Olympic Games, New Zealand hockey face a reassessment of how they prepare international sides, and the quality of their domestic competition.
Problems around the women's team, which claimed the wooden spoon in Beijing, are the most severe with coach Kevin Towns disillusioned and lacking answers after failing to win a game.
After the wooden spoon game was lost, Towns - who has coached the men's team - sounded like a man considering giving coaching away.
His contract runs for three more months.
"You can't lose that many games at an Olympics regardless of whether you had them qualify, without taking a good hard look at yourself," he said.
"I've never been in this position before. I know what the girls are capable of and they've only showed it in a couple of games."
His side started with 1-2 losses to Japan, Germany and Great Britain, went down 1-4 to the United States, then 2-3 to bronze medallists Argentina, and 1-4 to South Africa.
Players lacked confidence in themselves and the game plan, and it was time to take a close look at the domestic competition, Towns said.
"We've got to look very closely at our competition back home and say that if these are the best players, and I'm confident they were, then our competition back home is nowhere near strong enough," he said.
"We've got to look at our competition, our national hockey league as it is soft. I think our club scene is far too soft, it's accommodating to mediocre players.
"We've got secondary school players in a premier competition in Christchurch, and if the New Zealand hockey public believe that's going to put us in the top bracket of the world, they've got it wrong."
A forthcoming high performance review should go down as far as club level, Towns said.
Men's coach Shane McLeod was concerned about funding, after his side finished seventh with a rare 4-2 win over Pakistan.
It was a case of so near, yet so far - had New Zealand beaten Germany in their final pool match they would have been in the semifinals.
Instead they lost 1-3, and other results conspired to tumble them into the seventh-eighth playoff game.
"My hope is that the people who are in control of the purse strings recognise the ability of this group and the progress that this group has made," McLeod told NZPA.
"It's one of those things - when you don't get the results that you want you've got to put in even more, to keep up with those top nations you need money.
"This team will be at its very best in 2010, and then it's dependent on the quality of the youngsters coming through how good we could be in London in 2012."
- NZPA
