Kiwi women go hunting for gold again
Who could forget the scenes at the Gold Coast Hockey Centre four years ago. After no shortage of heartache at World Cups, Olympics, and Commonwealth Games, the Black Sticks’ women delivered on the big stage – knocking over Australia in their own backyard.
New Zealand’s 4-1 thumping of the Hockeyroos in the gold medal game was emphatic stuff too.
‘‘It’s been a long time coming and I know I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty terrible heartbreaks,’’ Black Sticks veteran Olivia Merry said at the time.
Now the pressure is on New Zealand as defending gold medallists.
Four years is a long time in elite sport and the Black Sticks women are vastly changed with 14 players making their Games debut.
Just four players remain from the Gold Coast triumph – cocaptain Merry, Tarryn Davey, Frances Davies, and goalkeeper Grace O’Hanlon.
New Zealand will play Australia, South Africa, Kenya, and Scotland, with their first game against Kenya on Saturday (NZ time).
England, India, Canada, Wales, and Ghana are in the other pool with the top two sides advancing to the semifinals.
Australia, who will be smarting from the pain of the 2018 gold medal match defeat, loom as frontrunners, alongside England on home soil. The Hockeyroos are ranked third in the FIH world rankings with England fifth and New Zealand slipping to eighth.
The Black Sticks women disappointed at last year’s Tokyo Olympics, finishing fourth in their pool, which set up a quarterfinal against eventual gold medallists, the Netherlands, who won 3-0.
They will take plenty of encouragement from the way they started at the Women’s Hockey World Cup this month.
New Zealand made a flying start, topping their pool, and beating England (3-1) and India (4-3), who will be medal rivals in Birmingham. They were then knocked out in the quarterfinals, losing 1-0 to Germany.
‘‘This is an exciting time for our women’s programme with quite a young team as we look to rebuild a little bit,’’ interim head coach Darren Smith said.
The Black Sticks men collected silver on the Gold Coast four years ago, losing 2-0 to Australia in the gold medal match.
Australia, ranked first in the
world, are red-hot favourites for gold again with New Zealand likely battling it out with England and India for the silver and bronze medals.
New Zealand are boosted by the return of captain Blair Tarrant, Kane Russell, Hugo Inglis and Nic Woods, who will make their first appearances for the Black Sticks since the Tokyo Olympics, having all played in Europe for the past six months.
The Black Sticks men, ranked ninth in the world, will be desperate to produce their best hockey after some tough recent results.
They struggled at the Tokyo Olympics, finishing fifth in their six-team pool and failed to advance to the quarterfinals – winning just one game, drawing another, and losing three matches.
The dominant Australian side swept the Black Sticks men 4-0 in their series in Auckland in June, outscoring the Kiwis 19-3 across the four games.
New Zealand and Australia are in the same pool in Birmingham with South Africa, Pakistan, and Scotland the other teams.