Hockey: Hager's plan to take on men goes on hold

The Dutch proved too strong for the women's Black Sticks. Photo / photosport.nz

It seems Black Sticks women's coach Mark Hager's impassioned call for his team to have more matchplay against men is going to have to wait.

After losing the World League final at North Harbour 3-0 to world No1 the Netherlands, Hager said it was important the women have more exposure to playing men's under-18 or 21 level provincial teams to learn about coping with a faster-paced, physical style of hockey.

"We've got to be innovational and stop beating our heads against a brick wall," Hager said. "We have got to play in the boys competition, simple, plain, easy and we've got to get over the fear of the girls getting hurt. We play under-18 boys and some under-21s and it's a good contest.

"They play at such a pace it gets us up to speed. That's what we've got at our disposal but I don't think we tap into it enough."

There are occasional hitouts against Auckland or North Harbour young men's age group teams but Hager wants more of it, and more structured.

However, Hockey New Zealand's high performance boss Paul MacKinnon made it clear it's not happening in the immediate future.

Asked if it was feasible for the national women's team to play in an under-18 national tournament, for example, he said: "Not yet. To make changes like that you need consolidated time with the whole system, and regions [and ask] is it the right thing to do?

"If it's a good idea, that's fine but it can take time to round it out and implement it."

MacKinnon admitted serious thought hadn't gone into the idea of women in a men's tournament at official level.

MacKinnon said there are a range of initiatives and acknowledged games against age group men are good value for the Black Sticks, who went up to No4 on world rankings with their performance at the World League tournament at Albany.

"It's a higher level of physical intensity, a faster game, and puts more pressure on time and space and decision-making aspects; the sort of things they'll face when they are playing teams like Argentina and the Netherlands."

Hager said the club competitions for the country's leading women aren't good enough. "They train once a week in club competitions, play once at weekends, where an under-18 tournament gives us the chance to play in tournament style against the boys.

"That's what Holland do every week. They play quality competition every week, train three or four times a week, play two games at weekends."

All that said, Hager felt his Black Sticks, considering the loss of a chunk of experienced players this year, are a year and a half ahead of where he thought they might be in terms of progress.

"Hopefully some of the young ones will learn. The Dutch gave us a bit of a lesson.

"We have to look at ways to score goals. [If we can't], we're not going to win games."