MEN’S JUNIOR WORLD CUP STARTS WITH TOUGH MATCH UP

Our U21 Men’s Junior World Cup campaign kicks off today as they face Belgium in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia at 4pm NZT.

Having been in Malaysia for nearly a week, the team has been acclimatising and training, including a practice match against France - as well as building on their recent experience at the Sultan of Johor Cup last month.

Head Coach Aaron Ford said he’s pretty excited for the World Cup to start, “We’ve been talking about this and playing around with the program for a while, but now we’re just looking forward to getting underway.

“Belgium will be a tough physical match with a high level of skill, they’re going to be quite aggressive and you know everyone wants to start the tournament well.

“We’re just excited about playing these top teams. You wanna test yourself against the best and it’s pretty cool to take on Belgium. And we know Pakistan and Holland are gonna be equally tough, but it doesn't matter who we're playing, it's a World Cup and it's gonna be tough.”

Captain Benji Culhane said the group are coming together and are prepared to take on the challenges of a tough group, “Everyone seems pretty upbeat and it’s a good vibe amongst the group. First couple of days we were hiding from the heat but yesterday we talked about embracing the challenge a bit more and I think we're going good coming into game one.

“Johor was pretty important and obviously playing in a similar sort of heat to here and getting games under our belt was massive. But spending more time together as a group, finding out a little bit about each other, how we're going to adapt and that sort of thing has been really good.

“We’ll look to be physical and obviously take the game on when we can, but I think you’ll see the sort of gritty, nuggety style that from New Zealand teams in the past.”