Hockey squad leaves

Press, 16 August 1988, Page 40

Hockey squad leaves

By

KEVIN TUTTY

Turning the New Zealand women’s hockey squad from 50 minute players into 70 minute players will be one of the key areas the national coach, Pat Barwick, will be working on in Sydney in the next month.

The national squad of 19 leaves New Zealand today for Sydney where it will train and play matches six days a week at the State Hockey Centre at Homebush.

On most days New Zealand will be training with the Canadian team, which will be in Sydney preparing for the Seoul Olympics in September. There will also be matches against Canada and the New South Wales state team.

The camp is the third for the New Zealand squad since November last year. The previous two were of six weeks and two weeks duration in Christchurch. Mrs Barwick established the concept of intensive training camps when New Zealand was comprehensively beaten

at a six nation tournament in Amsterdam a year ago. She believes they are vital if New Zealand is to regain a place among the top six women's hockey nations in the world. “I will be working hard on trying to get the players to concentrate for the full 70 minutes of a game. We showed in a tournament in Perth in March that we still don’t do that. We are only 50 minute players,” said Mrs Barwick.

"In international hockey these days you are stretched to the limit for 70 minutes, and if we are to improve our ranking we will have to be able to concentrate as intensely as ' other international teams.”

Another area on which Mrs Barwick will be working is team skills. “We have to develop an awareness of each other and learn to knit in with each other. Hopefully in four weeks we will be able to achieve that. “We certainly can’t expect to do now what we have done in the past —

spend a week-end together and go to an international tournament and expect to know the player beside you and behind you.

“In international hockey now the top teams are virtually professional. They spend weeks and weeks together every year and especially this year in the build up to the Olympics.”

Mrs Barwick said she would be interested to watch the training methods of the Canadians. They are a professional team and will provide a gauge for the New Zealand team’s progress. Increasingly other international teams have more time together, but Mrs Barwick believes New Zealand can still achieve a place in the top six nations in the world. “We have the players with the skills, but they have to be prepared to put in the time to match these other nations. We will also have to have a more settled squad, and not make so , many changes to the teain.”