KEY POINTS:
New Zealand men's hockey coach Shane McLeod is looking for a less defensive approach when they try to score a rare double over the Netherlands tomorrow.
The Black Sticks beat the Netherlands for the first time in five years with a 2-1 triumph at Lloyd Elsmore Park in
Auckland yesterday.
They play the Dutch at the same venue in the second match of a three-test series tomorrow night (7pm) and McLeod is hoping their form can continue.
The Black Sticks were 2-1 up at halftime yesterday despite the Dutch dominating territorially, scoring both their goals with counter-attacks.
They had more of the game in the second half, looking good in attack and restricting the Dutch chances, but McLeod said he didn't want his team going back into a defensive mode.
"The only thing I was really disappointed with is that we just dropped too deep and with the quality of the players they have they're just going to monopolise the game," McLeod said.
"We don't want their back four creeping up too high basically and setting up play. It's something we've got to work on."
Netherlands coach Roelant Oltmans acknowledged the Black Sticks played defensively yesterday, and said his team needed to value possession more when on attack so as not to concede goals on the counter-attack.
"New Zealand played very, very defensively -- at times they had 10 or 11 players close to their own quarter of the pitch," he said.
"In those circumstances we had to be very careful in the way we had possession. You could see two times we were very uncareful and that led to their goals."
New Zealand fielded a team with four new caps yesterday and most performed well, with Central striker Jan Petersen setting up the first goal for Bevan Hari and Canterbury defender Andy Hayward looking solid in defence.
The sole Dutch goal came from a dubious penalty stroke by their three-time world player of the year Teun de Nooijer, who was generally kept quiet by the Black Sticks defence.
McLeod, who is coaching the team for an interim term before a long-term successor to Kevin Towns is appointed, said he was pleased at the efforts of the newcomers.
"The young guys they really stepped up and played pretty well but you've got to give credit to the older guys for them to be able to do that.
"We have a really strong base of experienced players and it's a good unit."
"It wasn't always pretty but we did some effective things," McLeod said.
McLeod said he gave the world number 10 Black Sticks 7.5 out of 10 for their effort, saying it "wasn't always pretty but we did some effective things", but was delighted with a rare win over a Netherlands side ranked four in the world.
The Dutch disappointed when seventh at the last Champions Trophy but have been the dominant team in world hockey along with Australia in the past 15 years, winning two gold medals and one silver at the past three Olympic Games.
The teams play the third test of their series at the Tauranga Hockey Centre on Friday night.
- NZPA
