Hockey officials breathe sigh of relief

Press, 21 July 1982, Page 42

Hockey officials breathe sigh of relief

By

KEVIN TUTTY

The New Zealand hockey officials breathed a quiet sigh of relief yesterday with the arrival of the draw for the Junior World Cup finals in Kuala Lumpur next month.

The draw, received in the mail from the Malaysian Hockey Federation. is nowhere near as bad as the unofficial draw communicated to the New Zealand Hockey Association last week.

That draw had New Zealand playing three pool games on successive days, including the defending champion. Pakistan. The N.Z.H.A. was preparing a strong protest to the International Hockey Federation, and awaiting the outcome of enquiries regarding the draw when the official copy arrived from Malaysia.

New Zealand could not have been treated more fairly. Twice it. has games on successive days, but so do Pakistan and the Netherlands, New Zealand's chief rivals in pool A. The satisfying part of the draw from New Zealand’s viewpoint, is the starting time of its games. Four of its five pool matches start at 5.15 p.m., and the other — the first match of the tournament on August 14 — starts at 7.45 a.m.

Four starting times will be used for the pool matches. The others are at 9.15 a.m. and 3.45 p.m. These times largely avoid the oppressive heat in the middle of the day.

Mr Ross Gillespie, the manager of the Junior team, has experienced the heat of

Malaysiaa before. He was coach of the New Zealand senior team at the 1975 World Cup in the same city.

He said last evening the late afternoon games would suit New Zealand best. Rain, which falls virtually every day at mid-afternoon, helped cool the atmosphere and would make playing conditions more bearable. The tournament will be played on an artificial surface so there will be no problems with water-logged grounds as experienced by the 1975 team, and the New Zealand side at the InterContinental Cup in Kuala Lumpur last year. The early starting time of 7.45 a.m. is not so beneficial. It will require the team being roused at 5.30 a.m. New Zealand had early games in 1975 “and they were a disaster,” said Mr Gillespie.‘ "The players were half asleep for the first 20 minutes. We will have to get the team up a couple of times before their first game to get them used to it.” New Zealand’s pool games are against Belgium on August 14, Spain on August 15, Pakistan on August 18, Malaysia on August 20, and the Netherlands on August 21.

None of the games will be easy, but Pakistan and the Netherlands are regarded as

the most difficult teams in the pool. New Zealand will meet them on equal terms. It will have two days rest before it meets Pakistan, while the defending champion will be playing its third game in four days.

The Netherlands, like New Zealand, has a match the day before the two meet oh August 21.

The organising committee has taken the unusual step of playing the semi-finals on different days, so if New Zealand was fortunate enough to reach the final four, it would pay it to finish second in its pool. That way it would have three full days rest before its semi-final.

Not surprisingly, because of the recent upheavals in Argentina, that country’s entry has been withdrawn. A replacement has not been named, but- at short notice the organisers may find the gap hard to fill. Meanwhile the captain of the New Zealand Junior team, Stuart Grimshaw, has returned to Wellington after playing senior club hockey in Melbourne for three months.

He went to Melbourne to gain experience on the new artificial surface which has been in use there since the start of the season. The New Zealand team leaves Auckland on August 7 for Kuala Lumpur.