Bleary-eyed starts for hockey juniors

Press, 7 September 1984, Page 22

Bleary-eyed starts for hockey juniors

Protests by the management of the New Zealand junior hockey team, at the early morning start time it has for two matches in the Junior World Cup qualifying tournament in Kuala Lumpur, have apparently fallen on deaf ears.

New Zealand plays its ’first match in the AsiaOceania qualifying tournament tonight, against Hong Kong, a team which is completely unknown to it. The match will be played in the early evening (Malaysian time). But two games next week, against Oman and Bangladesh, are at 7.30 a.m., and the coach, Mr Barry Maister of Christchurch, sent a letter of protest through the New Zealand Hockey Association to the organising committee several weeks ago when he learned of the times.

“It is absurd to play any sport at that time of the day let alone an international match, so we wrote and explained our feelings,” said Mr Maister before he left New Zealand.

Early this week there had been no change to the schedule of games which has mainly teams from New Zealand’s pool playing early morning games. The host team Malaysia, which is in New Zealand’s pool, does not have an early morning start.

There are 12 teams in the qualifying tournament and the first four qualify for the Junior World Cup finals to be played in Vancover in August next year. New Zealand is ranked fifth for the qualifying

tournament behind Pakistan, Malaysia, India and Australia. While he has no real idea of how good the other teams are, Mr Maister expects that the teams to beat in New Zealand’s pool will be Malaysia and Pakistan.

Pakistan is expected to be an extremely good side with several members of the gold medal winning Los Angeles Olympic squad in its midst. Whether New Zealand qualifies for the semifinals — and thus a place in the Vancouver tournament — will boil down to whether it can beat Malaysia in its second game tomorrow. Hong Kong, Oman and Bangladesh, the other teams in the pool, should not prove too difficult for New Zealand to overcome.

Pakistan is the last pool game on September 13. It will be played in the evening under floodlights. By that stage New Zealand should be well prepared to

meet the fast and skilful Pakistanis.

Before leaving New Zealand the team had few opportunities to get together. It had two training weekends. “It doesn’t seem a lot, but it was all we could hope for. Another week in Kuala Lumpur getting used to the heat and the artificial surface will be an assistance, ” said Mr Maister.

He said the biggest problem was likely to be the heat and high humidity in Kuala Lumpur, rather than adapting to the artificial surface. “They should be able to adapt to that in one or two training sessions.” In the two training weekends before the team left New Zealand Mr Maister and his brother, Mr Selwyn Maister, who was associate coach, had worked on perfecting the skills of the players. (Mr Selwyn Maister was to manage the side in Kuala Lumpur but had to withdraw last week for family reasons. He was replaced by Mr Trevor Blake of Whangarei.) Mr Maister believes the strength of the team is in the forwards.

“We have seven players fighting for five places and in most games we are hoping that we can get all five forwards up on attack.”

That statement does not necessarily mean New Zealand would play the. orthodox pyramid formation. “What system we play will depend on the team and how the opposition plays. We will be playing a relatively orthodox formation

though, and dropping the insides back.” Mr Maister said the team had tried a 3-3-3-1 formation in a practice game and he was amazed at how quickly the team adapted to it. “But most are farmliar with 5-3-2 so we will stick with it Against the weaker teams we should be able to get five men up on attack and score goals.”

Canterbury has five players in the team and all should • acquit themselves well Three were regular menbers of the Canterbury team this year. They are David Penfold, John Radovonich and Mark. Tynan. If all three play well in Kuala Lumpur they will be on the verge of inclusion in the New Zealand senior squad to be named in a few weeks. The trio have all played in the Junior team previously. David Grundy and Mark Hobson are new to te national side but have played for Canterbury colts’ and senior club hockey.