Rep leaves for overseas experience

Press, 6 October 1989, Page 52

Rep leaves for overseas experience

By

KEVIN TUTTY

Greg Pierce, a regular member of the Canterbury men’s hockey team for the last 10 years, will be absent from the team next season and might have played his last game for the province. Pierce, also a regular member of the New Zealand side since 1984, has delayed his “overseas experience” for 10 years to pursue his hockey career. Now he has decided it is time to embark on his O.E. and he leaves later this month for an indefinite period. The only certainty is that he will not be back for the next New Zealand season.

Pierce, the most reliable of halves, said he was uncertain about his 'future in the New Zealand side.

“I will have to talk with Kevin Towns (the New Zealand coach) in Auckland before I leave, and if I am wanted I will return for the 1991 season.” New Zealand faces a qualifying tournament in 1991 where it hopes to win entry to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Pierce has not played in an Olympic Games. “I would like to have a dabble at the Olympics,” he said yesterday. Pierce, who will be 30 in two weeks, is not sure if he is required for the national squad. He was not selected for the Presi-

dent’s team to play in the trans- Tasman tournament next March and feels the * selectors might be looking for younger players. Pierce will not be turning his back on hockey. He will be taken his gear to Britain with him and intends to play in the Northern Hemisphere season just starting.

Pierce does not have a record of the number of games he has played for Canterbury, but he first represented the province in 1978, his first year out of school. He was in the Canterbury squad for a national tournament for the first time in 1979 and has been in the provincial team every year since.

He was chosen for New Zealand in 1982 and 1983 but was dropped for Mie Olympics in 1984. He won a place back in the national side in late 1984 and has remained a regular member of the team until this year. He was not chosen for the Inter-Con-tinental Cup in New York in July. If Pierce is not required for the national squad he will probably be away for two years. “I will do some work, and travel a bit in Europe while I’m away.”

While he will be missed from the Canterbury squad,, it will be the University club for which he plays, that will feel his absence the most. He will leave a substantial gap to fill in the team’s defence.