Broken Sticks close to wooden spoon

A SECOND-HALF capitulation has put the men’s Black Sticks at risk of collecting the wooden spoon from the Champions Trophy today.

Two- nil up against weakened Olympic and world champions Germany at halftime yesterday, coach Colin Batch’s side conceded six goals in the second 35 minutes to go down 6-4 and be relegated to this afternoon’s seventh- place playoff against England.

The loser will slink away from the prestigious Melbourne tournament in last place.

The Black Sticks will be kicking themselves for letting a number of decent scoring opportunities go against the Germans – chances which would have put them three or four-nil up and in with a chance of finishing fifth in the tournament.

Midfielder

Shae

McAleese

said his side’s defensive performance was simply not good enough.

‘‘To ship six goals in one half of hockey is just not good enough,’’ he said.

‘‘We need to look a bit at ourselves, the way we defended in that half, because it was pretty poor to be honest.

‘‘ The first half, yeah probably [there were positives]. But second half not so much, we’ve got to get ourselves up for the game against England. When you come to this tournament you don’t want to finish last. It will be a big game for us again.’’

Veteran Phil Burrows opened the scoring in the seventh minute with an acute reverse- stick shot and when Nick Wilson doubled the lead at the half-hour mark with a brilliant deflected touch, things were looking good for New Zealand.

From the right flank Simon Child fizzed a tomahawk cross into the attacking circle, which Wilson ran onto, then evaded his marker and glanced past German goalkeeper Nicolas Jacobi.

But Wilson was one of a handful of players guilty of failing to make it three thereafter, missing from close range six minutes after restart.

And the Germans Black Sticks pay.

An excellent goal from Marco Miltkau with 30min saw the German receive the ball halfway into the shooting circle, complete a full pirouette to shake his markers, and shoot past Kiwi keeper Hamish McGregor.

Soon after, captain Mats Grambusch drew the Germans level with a semi-scrambled goal.

To New Zealand’s credit, Stephen Jenness restored the lead in the 50th minute, converting a penalty corner.

Jenness injected the ball and after a Black Sticks dummy, he

made

the received the ball back at the near post and tucked home. However, Germany equalised immediately with a penalty corner of their own, Tobias Matania dispatching a low drag flick beyond McGregor.

From there, things only got worse for the Black Sticks as a well taken Miltkau goal in the 60th minute put Germany ahead for the first time in the match, and then a stunning solo effort from Jan Christopher Ruehr followed, skipping past two Black Sticks’ defenders and firing a powerful reversestick shot into the net to make it 5-3.

With seven minutes left, Nick Haig got one back for New Zealand with a lofted shot into the top-right corner, but Ruehr made it 6-4 with a shot into an unguarded net.

THE WOMEN’S Black Sticks thumped India 7- 2 in the first game of a six-test series in Napier yesterday. Striker Katie Glynn headed the attack with a hat-trick.