Tactics irk Pakistanis

Press, 20 August 1982, Page 28

Tactics irk Pakistanis

NZPA Hong Kong New Zealand’s defensive tactics in Wednesday’s 0-4 loss to Pakistan at the Junior World Cup hockey tournament in Kuala Lumpur upset the Pakistani team.

According to the New Zealand manager, Ross Gillespie, a Kuala Lumpur newspaper report yesterday quoted the Pakistan manager, Brigadier-General Athisf Khan, as saying his players were victimised by the latitude allowed the New Zealanders in their use of body contact.

“What they were really upset about was that we were not prepared to give their players any room,” said Mr Gillespie in a telephone interview.

“Out of necessity we adopted a fairly defensive

attitude. The Pakistan team includes five full internationals and some brilliant forwards. We had to blunt their attack.”

In spite of the decisive loss, the team had shown considerable improvement since its 1-2 loss to Spain in the opening game. New Zealand’s coach, Trevor Blake, had been “pretty pleased” with the improvement and Pakistan was lucky to have led, 1-0, at half-time.

Mr Gillespie said the tactics aimed at frustrating the Pakistani players almost succeeded. Some became niggly and two spent periods off the field in the “sin bin.” Two others received warnings for their behaviour, but no New Zealander was sent off. •

Three relatively simple field goal chances, two in the first half, were missed by New Zealand and the final result was disappointing, he said.

Pakistan, the defending champion, is the strong favourite to win the tournament and retain the cup. With two losses from two games, New Zealand is bottom of a five-team group at present led by Pakistan and Spain. New Zealand plays Malaysia today and the Netherlands tomorrow in its remaining group games, and must win both decisively to have even a remote chance of making the semi-finals. West Germany leads the other group from Australia and India. In yesterday's only game West Germany beat Canada. 2-0.