N.Z. hockey team must beat Britain

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 60

N.Z. hockey team must beat Britain

New Zealand, a notoriously bad starter, has everything in its favour for the rest of its pool matches if it can beat Great Britain in its first game at the Perth International hockey tournament today. New Zealand meets Britain this afternoon, and to reach the semi-finals at the end of pool play on April 28. it will have to avenge its 1-3 loss to Britain, at the International Champions Trophy tournament in Lahore, last November. New Zealand had the excuse in Lahore that it had played Pakistan the day before while Britain started fresh. There were also several new caps in the team at Lahore who had not played against the European style of hockey. Today there can be no excuses. Both teams start fresh. New Zealand will not field any new caps and it has had a much sounder build-up to the tournament than it did for Lahore. Also the spanking new Astro-turf surface should suit the higher degree of individual

skill possessed by the New Zealanders. New Zealand will have to perform better, than it did against Britain in Lahore. The match statistics show that in that game both sides had five penalty-corners and two corners, but New Zealand had 14 goal attempts to Britain’s two — an indictment on the New Zealanders’ ability to score goals, even if faced by a superb goal-keeper in lan Taylor. Britain must stand like an ogre before New Zealand I today, but if Britain .is ; beaten, then the draw i favours the Olympic champion. Malaysia trounced 9-0 by Pakistan in the first match of the tournament yesterday, meets Kenya today and then plays its third successive game against New Zealand tomorrow. New Zealand must take advantage of what will surely be a tired Malaysian side. It will then have a day’s rest before it plays Kenya on Tuesday. Again the draw favours New Zealand because on Monday Kenya plays Pakistan.

New Zealand will have a rest day again before it meets the brilliant world champion, Pakistan, in its final pool match on. Thursday. Pakistan, displaying speed and brilliant stickwork piled on the pressure from the start, forcing seven short corners against Malaysia’s one, reports the NZPA from Perth. It led 4-0 at half-time and in spite of a big lead, did not let up pressure in the second half as its goal-hun-gry forwards went on the rampage. Pakistan took only 47 seconds after the start to score its first goal when the right wing, Kalimullah converted a penalty stroke after a defender had stopped Munawar Zaman’s short corner hit with his foot. The early setback did not stop the Malaysians from attempting a fightback and in the seventh minute Malaysia’s right wing, Ow Soon Kooi, had a shot from the top of the circle saved by the goal-keeper, Saleem Sherwani.