Style of play dictated by surface

Press, 3 September 1982, Page 26

Style of play dictated by surface

By

KEVIN TUTTY

Hockey is developing into two distinct games — one style for artificial surfaces, and another for grass surfaces.

That conclusion was drawn by Ross Gillespie the manager of the New Zealand team at the Junior World Cup finals in Kuala Lumpur. The team returned home yesterday. Mr Gillespie was the coach of the New Zealand team .that won the hockey gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and that was the last time he had seen a major , international tournament.

In the six intervening years Mr Gillespie has noticed a marked development in the skills of players who have access to artificial surfaces. New Zealand, being one of the teams that did not have access to an artificial surface, found it difficult to adapt in Kuala Lumpur. This was one of the reasons for its disappointing tenth placing at the 11 team tournament, Mr Gillespie said. The most significant factor that counted against New. Zealand was its lack of speed — both of foot and thought. Mr Gillespie attributed this to not being able to play on artificial surfaces.

New Zealand’s best player was Stuart Grimshaw, and he had spent most of the New Zealand season playing senior club hockey in Melbourne, which now bas an artificial surface. Another major problem for New Zealand, was its inability to score goals. "We had as many scoring chances in each game as the opposing sides, but could not score the goals." “Our final match against Kenya typified our goal scoring efforts. We had 31 scoring chances to eight.” New Zealand lost the matches (for ninth and tenth placings) 0-1 in extra-time.

Mr Gillespie said he and the coach, Trevor Blake, had talked at length about why the team did not score goals, and how to improve this facet of the game. “We watched several of the teams practising and they play a lot of five on five situations around the circle. We would normally call this “fun” practice. But they take it seriously, shooting for goal when they get the chance, and are able to turn the situations into goals in patches. “Mr Gillespie believes New Zealand teams will have to do more of this type of training. He emphasised that other teams did not

neglect their physical or skill training.

He recalled seeing the West German team make four passes inside the circle in one game before the goal was scored. If New Zealand intends to continue in the Junior World Cup, Mr Gillespie believes, development squads must be selected now. Mr Gillespie said New Zealand, and several other countries complained about the unfair advantage the defending champion and host nation received. These two countries —- this year Pakistan and Malaysia

— did not have to play in qualifying tournaments so were able to select their squads for the finals up to four years ago. The other 10 teams could not use the same teams in the finals as they used in the qualifying tournaments. There was a year’s difference in age qualification for the qualifying tournaments and the finals. Mr Gillespie said the 14 days tournament could easily have been condensed into 10 days. “On several days there was just one game. It appeared the organisers just wanted to get the crowds to help pay for the tournament.”