Final buildup for N.Z. hockey team

Press, 24 February 1984, Page 8

Final buildup for N.Z. hockey team

By

JANE DAVIDSON

The New Zealand women’s hockey coach, Wayne Boyd, has high hopes the team will perform with distinction at the fournation tournament against Australia, Canada and the United States, which begins in Melbourne on Wednesday.

The tournament is the last opportunity for New Zealand to play against teams of world class before the Olympic Games in late July.

Of the six women’s teams which will contest the Olympics, four will be at Melbourne. Australia has the highest ranking for Los Angeles — second behind the Netherlands — with the United States, Canada and New Zealand fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.

The Melbourne matches will be played on artificial surfaces, which offer a far more consistent bounce and pace than any grassed ground can, but that should not pose many problems for the New Zealanders.

The last World Cup at Kuala Lumpur, in which New Zealand finished seventh, was played on such a pitch, and there will be three practice matches before Jenny McDonald leads her team out to play the United States on Wednesday afternoon.

The first is against a top Melbourne club side; the second against the Victorian junior side and the last, on Sunday, against the full state team.

The gradual introduction to top flight hockey should give Mr Boyd a chance to let all 14 squad members have at least one run, and enable players to get acclimatised and used to the faster surface.

Mr Boyd feels he is in charge of a very well balanced team, “not only in hockey skills but also in experience,” he said. He is

not at all worried that Australia has changed its forward line-up considerably since the World Cup, or that New Zealand has yet to record its first win against the United States. Instead, he has been showing videos of the Kuala Lumpur matches as part of the training programme, and is confident that a fully fit team will acquit itself well.

Mr Boyd said he wants team members to know that they would hold their positions if they played well, and yet have the back-up in knowing there were substitutes of high standard waiting in the wings. One interested spectator at Melbourne will be Mary Clinton, of Christchurch, who had the misfortune to break a bone in her foot at the team’s training weekend at Hamilton several weeks ago. Clinton has just had the plaster removed, but it could be a couple of months before she returns to full fitness. She is confident she will come right before the Olympics, but in the meantime will have to be content to watch her teammates from the grandstands.