ExAustralia captain to lead coaching clinic

FORMER Australia captain Mark Knowles will be in Dunedin early next year to lead a twoday coaching clinic.

The 2014 World Player of the Year is being brought over by the Otago Hockey Association to help inspire the hockey community.

OHA general manager Andy McLean said the organisation wanted to ‘‘do something a little bit different’’.

‘‘We wanted someone with a bit of profile and history in the game,’’ McLean said.

‘‘We started doing some research and after talking to Mark it went from there.’’

The coaching clinics will be held at the McMillan Hockey Centre on January 2627.

Knowles, who won gold with Australia at the 2004 Olympics, has recently retired from playing and is doing some coaching work.

He has plenty of knowledge to pass on and McLean said to attract ‘‘someone with his record and pedigree in the game to work with the players in this area’’ was a coup.

‘‘We recently appointed Hymie Gill as our pathways manager as well and we want to be ambitious and creative in the programmes we offer. To get Mark over to kick off 2019 is really exciting.’’

The coaching clinics will be open to the community. McLean said the association was still working through what the clinics would cost but the price would be ‘‘reasonable’’.

The Black Sticks Men beat Malaysia 43 in the second test in Kuala Lumpur yesterday to take an unbeatable 20 lead in the threematch series.

Captain Blair Tarrant said overall it was a good performance.

‘‘It was good to be put under pressure by a Malaysian side that kept coming back at us and then to be tested against 11 men for the final few minutes once they pulled their goalkeeper.’’