NZR should feel absolutely blessed over the coverage they get. The Hockey World Cup in the Netherlands and Spain that just finished got pretty much zero coverage in the MSM - even the Guardian had zero coverage despite England being seen as a contender and making it through to the quarter finals. The Hockeyroos won bronze after pushing the Dutch to the limit in the semi and solidified their no 3 world ranking, yet the Sydney Morning Herald has printed nothing on hockey since the Tokyo Olympics men's final loss. Not a single line on the whole tournament. Finding any independent analysis is essentially impossible - despite some interesting developments like Germany (4th) fielding in their strike line players better known as defenders, something NZ pioneered with Julia King at Tokyo.
I've heard a lot of talk in NZ about how the AB women's 7s were supposedly at an unheard-of level of dominance for a women's sport team during the last Olympic cycle. As good as they are, if they'd taken notice of the Dutch women's hockey side they'd be very humbled (they've won 9 of the 15 world cups so far and only failed to medal once; won 4 of the 10 Olympics this Moscow and only failed to medal once; some stats from Rio to the start of Tokyo can be found at https://www.thehockeypaper.co.uk/articles/2021/07/11/the-stats-which-put-netherlands-women-on-a-hockey-pedestal - excuse the popups).
Well said.
NZR should feel absolutely blessed over the coverage they get. The Hockey World Cup in the Netherlands and Spain that just finished got pretty much zero coverage in the MSM - even the Guardian had zero coverage despite England being seen as a contender and making it through to the quarter finals. The Hockeyroos won bronze after pushing the Dutch to the limit in the semi and solidified their no 3 world ranking, yet the Sydney Morning Herald has printed nothing on hockey since the Tokyo Olympics men's final loss. Not a single line on the whole tournament. Finding any independent analysis is essentially impossible - despite some interesting developments like Germany (4th) fielding in their strike line players better known as defenders, something NZ pioneered with Julia King at Tokyo.
I've heard a lot of talk in NZ about how the AB women's 7s were supposedly at an unheard-of level of dominance for a women's sport team during the last Olympic cycle. As good as they are, if they'd taken notice of the Dutch women's hockey side they'd be very humbled (they've won 9 of the 15 world cups so far and only failed to medal once; won 4 of the 10 Olympics this Moscow and only failed to medal once; some stats from Rio to the start of Tokyo can be found at https://www.thehockeypaper.co.uk/articles/2021/07/11/the-stats-which-put-netherlands-women-on-a-hockey-pedestal - excuse the popups).
That's my grumpy rant for this week.
Dyls Dyls Dyls, remind me next time we have a dram how to get yourself invited into the NZR Box.