MEN
Indians
Dalefield
One converted field goal was all that separated defending champions Farriers Dalefield and Indians in a tight Intercity match at the National Hockey Stadium [NHS].
Indians took the lead in the first quarter after they swooped on a miss-trap and took advantage of a two-on-one to score. The shootout conversion was successful giving Indians a two-goal lead they never surrendered.
“We competed really well. We had four or five penalty corners but failed to convert. We created heaps of opportunities, and we played pretty well, all things considered,” Dalefield player-coach Benedict van Woerkom said.
“We were short on players and only had one sub, so most of the players had to play the full game.”
Dalefield were boosted with Dane Lett’s return from international duty, although van Woerkom said the Black Stick “was crook and was running on half empty, but he did his thing and soldiered on.”
Van Woerkom felt the effort was an improvement on recent below-par efforts against Victoria, Northern United and Hutt United, which resulted in a draw and two losses.
“It was a good game, and it wasn’t like we were just defending. We just couldn’t find the back of the goal when we needed to.
“We played better hockey, but at the end of the day, we didn’t win, and it’s a performance competition, and if you don’t win, you don’t get the points, and you’ve got no chance to defend your title so we have to win our next two against Feilding and Te Awa.”
WOMEN
Hutt United
Dalefield
Farriers Dalefield women’s coach Michael Sacke rued his team’s poor first-half defence performance in their heavy Intercity loss to a slick Hutt United at the NHS.
Black Stick Aniwaka Haumaha was at the centre of many of Hutt’s raids into the Dalefield territory and took full toll of slack defence, scoring a hat-trick and converting all three as Hutt built a 7–0 lead after two quarters.
“We didn’t mark her particularly well, and we talked about that before the start. We couldn’t allow her to dominate the game and make those long passes into the circle, and we just allowed that to happen,” Sacke said.
“She’s not a Black Stick for nothing, and we had to control her, and we didn’t, and she scored three field goals and converted those.
“We actually played quite well in the second half; we held them a lot better, and we had a few chances ourselves, and we kept in the fight, but it was one-way traffic in the first half.”
Sacke feels that the biggest issue around his inexperienced team is that “we can’t consistently field the same team, so we continually have to mix and match with different players coming in. It’s something that I think we have to address.”
