Hockey: Black Sticks meet Korea in battle for cup bronze

New Zealand will chase a third Sultan Azlan Shah Cup bronze medal when they play Korea in the second match on playoff day in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.

They will meet Korea in the third-fourth playoff in a repeat of the same match at the tournament two years ago when New Zealand won 3-2 in a repeat of their round-robin result. They also won bronze in 1995.

This time Korea will have that psychological advantage after coming from behind to beat the Black Sticks 6-4 on Thursday night in New Zealand's last pool match.

While disappointed at the loss, coach Kevin Towns is confident his team can turn it around.

"They didn't beat us. We lost it," Towns said. "We handed them too much ball - eight or nine passes to nobody. That was just fatigue. Next time we will have had the advantage of a two-day break whereas they will have played 24 hours before.

"The first area we will be looking at is cutting down the number of times we gave them the ball in the open. The Korean coach can say they stepped it up in the second half - after turning at 3-2 down - but it was again more a case of tiredness catching up."

New Zealand had a dream start with field goals to Phil Burrows and Gareth Books in the opening five minutes. Seo Jong-ho got one back but Bryce Collins re-established the Black Sticks' two-goal advantage after 20 minutes.

Successful penalty corner strikes either side of halftime and a penalty stroke after a bad tackle handed the Koreans the lead, at 4-3, for the first time five minutes into the second spell.

Brooks got New Zealand back to 4-4 with a penalty corner rebound after 45 minutes but the momentum was lost when Burrows was sinbinned for 10 minutes and the Koreans scored two late goals for victory.

"We missed an open goal at 4-4," Towns said. "If Bevan Hari had put it away as he should have after receiving a good ball from Darren Smith, it could have been a different story."

Towns will have a full squad to select from for tomorrow's game and said he is likely, for the first time at the tournament, to go with just one goalkeeper and add an extra outfield player to his bench.

"It could be useful to use the extra rotation," said Towns. "It is still pretty warm although the temperature dropped to about 30C at halftime in the game against Korea."

Pakistan are likely to play Australia for gold.