Darren Smith med new head coach of NZ hockey team

Auckland, Feb 14: Former intertiol Darren Smith was on Tuesday med the new head coach of the New Zealand men's hockey team, succeeding Colin Batch, who left in December. Smith, who played 212 matches for New Zealand from 1995 to 2006, was assistant coach of the tiol team from 2007 to 2012 before leading the Ireland women's programme as head coach from 2012 to 2015. Smith is excited to take on the head coach role which has been a persol dream for a long time, moving on from his most recent role as High Performance Director at Softball New Zealand. IANS