New Zealand announce Men’s squad for nine-a-side Super Series Hockey – Hockey News
The Men’s hockey team of New Zealand comprising of fifteen players has been announced for the upcoming nine-a-side Super Series Hockey which is scheduled to be held in Perth, Australia from October 20 to 23.
Introduced by Hockey Australia, the nine-a-side game will be played on a very fast pace with new rules and regulations. The Black Sticks is featured with Pakistan, India and host Australia in the Super Series. Shane McLeod, the Men’s trainer of the New Zealand
hockey team stated that it will be a more fast paced game and it will test the endurance of the players.
As per the new rules, the match in the nine-a-side series will be of 30 minutes with two halves of 15 minutes. The size of the goal will be large, as compare to traditional hockey. While one-player from each team will have to stay in the attacking line of
the opposite side in order to continue pressure. Furthermore the rules for the short corners and penalty strokes have been made more simplified in order to give players more chances to score goals.
The nine-a-side format will increase the speed and excitement of the game, in the hopes of attracting more people to hockey world-wide. Most of the international teams are now adapting their squads to participate in the nine-a-side format. The Super Series
will give a good opportunity for the teams to get some playing time before the Olympic Qualifiers begin.
Two custodians including Hamish McGregor and Kane Russell were included in the 15-member squad who will get opportunity to gain international exposure. Amazingly, only nine players from Oceania Olympic Qualifiers have been inducted into the Black Sticks.
The coach further added that the super series will help the youngsters to quickly learn the fast paced games. He said, “This kind of tournament will be a sharp learning curve for our less experienced players; however with no ranking points at stake it is
a relatively easy entrance to international hockey against very experienced national sides.”
The Federal and State governments of Australia in support of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) are hosting the tournament. The Men’s hockey team of New Zealand is presently busy in their training session in Hobart to prepare for the Olympic
Qualifiers.
The teams of Australia and New Zealand have already been selected for the Olympics after Fiji backed down from the Olympics Qualifying round.
The line-up is comprised of Nick Haig, Andy Hayward, Shay Neal, Arun Panchia, Shea McAleese, Blair Hilton, Joel Baker, Richard Petherick, Hugo Inglis, Stephen Graham, Hamish McGregor, Blair Tarrant, Stephen Jenness, Ben Collier and Kane Russell.
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