Hockey: NZ critical of hockey format

Assistant New Zealand coach Selwyn Maister has criticised the format being used for the Olympic women's hockey tournament, saying it favours Australia and the Netherlands.

The top three teams from the two pools of five have been decided and it is the next stage which the New Zealand management disagree with.

Organisers decided to do away with the traditional competition where the top two teams in each pool qualified for the semifinals.

The format is being used for the first time in a major hockey event at the Sydney Games and is the same as used for last year's World Cup cricket tournament, which also drew criticism and confusion.

``We don't agree with the format fullstop,'' Maister told NZPA.

``It's a bizarre way to run a hockey tournament. It's extremely complicated and a quite ridiculous way of running a tournament.

``We believe it's a system designed to help the strongest teams Australia and the Netherlands who have got the advantage of stronger squads.''

Maister felt when the system was announced earlier this year coaches from smaller countries like New Zealand would have to decide whether to play their best players in the toughest games in order to get points for the medal round and rest them against weaker teams -- and risk losing everything.

Also, the prospect of playing eight games in 13 days was deemed crazy, meaning it may not be the best team that wins, rather which one lasts best.

``I guess to some extent it's been forced on the organisers by the requirement to have more women's hockey and this way gives them more matches,'' Maister said.

``This format is unknown to hockey and even our players are struggling totally to understand what's going on.''

The teams play another round robin of three matches against teams they did not meet in the first round, and the top two at the end of that will play off for the gold medal, and third and fourth for the bronze.

Points garnered from the opening round robin are carried through.

New Zealand ended up topping their pool after China suffered a surprise 0-1 loss to South Africa in their last match yesterday.

They will meet the other pool-toppers and defending Olympic champions Australia tomorrow afternoon, Spain on Monday and Argentina on Wednesday.

``Australia are clearly playing well and are clearly still the favourites for the tournament,'' Maister said.

``They are beatable. In a one-off game most teams here have beaten them, including New Zealand but in a tournament like this I'm not sure at this stage whether we're up to beating them.

``We'll certainly be focusing on putting in a good performance in this medal round match and our aim is to make the medal playoffs. We've just got to plan accordingly.''

The New Zealand team have had two days off since their last match against South Africa which Maister said had been a blessing. There were the expected niggles but all players are available for tomorrow's match.

- NZPA