HOCKEY: Boys set to focus on gelling as team

ANENDRA SINGH
The nice thing about team work is being comfortable in the knowledge that you have others on your side. Of course, having the resources and brains trust behind a team also pay dividends.
But as the under-15 hockey boys in the province have discovered, having the country's top Kelt Capital Hawke's Bay Hockey Academy in Napier means nothing if the pool of talent and skills cannot be fused to achieve a common goal.
Hosting the national age-group tournament at the Kelt Capital Hockey Stadium in Park Island during the week, the teenagers have so far won one game, drawn one and lost three.
So what's not happening for the boys?
"We need to move the ball quicker and encourage each others a little more on the turf," skipper Brennan Alexander told SportToday after Marlborough pipped his side 2-1 yesterday afternoon.
While playing five games on the trot has been a slog fest, the Napier Boys' High School pupil suspects his team lack a little bit of mongrel compared with the other 15 teams in the tournament.
"All the teams seem to have the desire to win. Before each game we'll be having a serious talk to pump ourselves up, from tomorrow (today) ," said Alexander, a centre half in the Ro Hill-coached side.
Yesterday the team found themselves on the back foot when the visitors drew first blood in the 17th minute from a penalty corner. However, the boys dug deep to level terms about eight minutes before halftime from a penalty corner goal to defender Sash Paerau.
Unfazed, Marlborough's pep talk at halftime must have had the essential ingredients because they found the net two minutes into the second 30-minute spell and remained defiant until the final whistle.
Manager John Reid said: "The boys were finding the pace tough and their overall fitness and skills were lacking. They need to put the skills to a team format to win." That theory was to be put to test today and tomorrow when the Bay boys were to face Wairarapa first up for 13th to 16th placings. Top Bay goal scorer/right wing Thomas Gardiner, with three to date, will have to be at his best. Finishing last seemed enough motivation to fire up Alexander's troops. He felt their new-look side, with five players from the previous season, would come right next season in the under-16 nationals.
The match of the day was a quarterfinal between Auckland and Waikato, with the other side of Bombay Hills snatching two goals in the last two minutes to break the Moloo boys' hearts with a 3-2 victory.