Hockey: Sizing up the opposition

The New Zealand men will get an early chance to assess their medal chances at next year's Melbourne Commonwealth Games when they play the Sultan Azlan Shah tournament in Kuala Lumpur next month.

Many of the Commonwealth nations have been invited to the May 26-June 5 tournament, headed by world No 2 Australia.

Other teams (with world rankings in brackets) are Pakistan (4), India (5), Korea (7), Malaysia (11) and South Africa (12).

New Zealand finished third at the last tournament in 2003.

"It is an important tournament for us," national coach Kevin Towns said.

"We will name the team to go to Europe after the Azlan Shah. Those players, along with around another eight to 12, will go into an intensive training camp in July."

Towns has welcomed back son Simon for the Malaysian tournament after he missed the recent home series against Malaysia.

He will captain the team, with Ryan Archibald as his deputy.

"While Ryan will play in the Azlan Shah, he is unavailable for the European tour, but we are lucky that Simon is now available through to next year's World Cup, which means he will play at the Commonwealth Games," Kevin Towns said

But with Simon Towns' retirement looming, the coach is keen to find cover in the pivotal centre-half role.

"We will continue to look at players such as Shaun Barnett, Shea McAleese and James Nation in that role. There had been some thought that Ryan Archibald should play there, but I prefer to use him in a more attacking role."

Towns is keen to monitor others, including Dean Couzins, who has been playing in Holland and missed the Malaysian series.

"He has played 68 games, but struggled a bit at the Champions Trophy," he said.

"We are keen to see how he is playing as we look at our defensive options."

With the experienced Dion Gosling unavailable, Couzins, Brad Shaw and Richard Petherick (who both played well against Malaysia) get their chance to press for places on the European tour.

Towns has named regular goalkeepers Paul Woolford and Kyle Pontifex for the Azlan Shah tournament and is keen to continue the work done at this month's goalkeeping clinic.

"We all learned a lot from that," Towns said.

"It confirmed that generally our guys are on track but not as fit and as aggressive as they should be.

"There were other things we need to work on, including their work in their air. To help that we are likely to introduce a boxing-type programme."

Apart from Gosling, the other players unavailable for selection were Wayne McIndoe and Mitesh Patel.

The line-up

New Zealand team

Sultan Azlan Shah tournament
May 26-June 5, Malaysia:

Simon Towns, Dean Couzins, Ryan Archibald, Bevan Hari, Paul Woolford, Hamish Baron, Gareth Brooks (Auckland), David Kosoof, Darren Smith, Blair Hopping, Bryce Collins, Shaun Barnett (North Harbour), Brad Shaw, Shea McAleese (Canterbury), Kyle Pontifex, Phil Burrows, James Nation (Wellington), Richard Petherick (Waikato).