Hockey: Hager faces toughest ask when team face Aussies

Mark Hager has no doubts where his allegiance lies in preparing "his" New Zealand women's team for this afternoon's Oceania Cup final against Australia.

"I'm most definitely a Kiwi," said Hager, who had one of the longest and most successful international careers across the Tasman. "For the next four years, hopefully longer, I am happy to be a New Zealander."

Hager faces the toughest ask in his brief time as coach since taking over from Kevin Towns, who stepped down in the wake of a disappointing Olympic campaign.

With direct entry to next year's World Cup at stake, neither New Zealand nor Australia want to stumble here and have to face a cut-throat qualifying tournament.

New Zealand cannot afford to give the Australians the start that they did in pool play this week.

Down 2-0 after just four minutes, the Black Sticks rallied to get one goal back and finish the match at 2-1 but Hager admits the chances of coming back from a horror start like that are slim. "You can't really hope to play catch-up against a team like Australia," said Hager.

Hager will show his hand by going in with a full complement of strikers.

"We will play three up front and hope they can again get the good service they had from the young midfield who I thought did particularly well on Wednesday. We are also fortunate in having Stacey Carr back to add some experience in midfield ..."

While he has yet to name his team - or make the call on whether he will go in with just one goalkeeper in his 16-player squad - it seems certain Hager will include front-runners Krystal Forgesson, Katie Glynn, Charlotte Harrison and Anita Punt and use his bench to ensure a good rotation.

"I will sleep on the goalkeeper situation," said Hager. "I have to decide whether to go with one or two and if we go with one, which one? It will be a tough call as both Beth [Jurgeleit] and Bianca [Russell] have done well.

"If we go with one keeper and have to leave out just one outfield player it will be a defender."

The players spent some time working on set plays and in particular penalty corners in their final training session at the match venue yesterday.

Given the gap between the two sides in the latest world rankings - Australia at five and New Zealand 11 - the Australians go into the early match on finals day as deserved favourites but anything is possible.