THE New Zealand women’s hockey team got off to a dominating 4-1 winning start to their intensive summer series against Korea at Lloyd Elsmore Park last Saturday.
The women Black Sticks are playing Korea five times over eight days until this Saturday and Sunday’s fourth and fifth tests at the Pakuranga hockey stadium. The second and third tests are in Whangarei this week.
Coach Mark Hager was impressed with what he saw from his New Zealand team last Saturday. “It was great to have a win to start the series. The combinations weren’t always quite there. We need to continue to work on structures and value our possession more in the front third.”
New Zealand’s goals were scored by Samantha Harrison, Clarissa Eshuis, Cathryn Finlayson and Krystal Forgesson, while Korea’s went to Jong Eun Kim.
Before the Korea series started, Hager and co-captain Kayla Sharland told the Times at training it’s good to have international play on home soil for fans to enjoy, especially after their successful run at last year’s Commonwealth Games.
The Korean series is the first time the Black Sticks women have been in action since their silver medal-winning performance, when they lost the exciting Delhi Games final 4-2 to arch-rivals Australia on penalties.
Like a lot of New Zealand’s sporting codes, hockey is looking forward to next year’s London Olympics and is using series such as the ones against Korea to measure how they’re performing against top class opposition.
No comments:
Post a Comment