A implausible crowd on the McMillan Hockey Centre in Ōtepoti Dunedin had been handled to a spectacular ultimate day on the Ford Nationwide Hockey Championship (NHC), the primary affiliation based mostly nationwide event in additional than 25 years and the primary main home event since 2020.
The day’s first ultimate noticed Southland tackle North Harbour B within the Tier 2 Girls’s division, as Southland seemed to avenge an early loss to the northerners in pool play. Buoyed by native help, Southland received off to a flying begin when Dayna Holland transformed a penalty nook within the first minute of play.
Susan White scored simply earlier than half-time to make it 2-0 and regardless of a Harbour objective within the forty fourth minute, the deficit proved an excessive amount of to beat as Southland ran out deserved 2-1 winners to say Tier 2 gold and the Floyd Defend for 2022.
Within the Tier 2 bronze medal match, Counties Manukau defeated Tasman to cap off a profitable event down South.
It was then Canterbury and Harbour’s flip to hunt nationwide glory within the 2022 Tier 1 Girls’s ultimate – a repeat of the 2019 Nationwide Hockey League ultimate. Competing for the Okay Cup, either side felt one another out within the early phases earlier than Georgia Clement scored her first objective of the event within the ninth minute.
The lead for Harbour wouldn’t final lengthy, nevertheless, because the mainlanders struck again within the subsequent minute by way of a penalty nook. Then, within the second quarter, Jenna-Rae McIntyre scored her fourth and maybe most important objective of the event, as Canterbury seized a 2-1 lead which they might not relinquish.
Tier 1 Gold on the Ford NHC represents considerably of a trifecta for Canterbury Girls’s hockey in 2022 after the affiliation received the Vantage U18 Nationwide Championship whereas Christchurch Woman’s Excessive Faculty claimed nationwide school-girl honours on the Federation Cup.
Manawatu and Auckland couldn’t be separated on the finish of normal time within the bronze medal recreation earlier within the afternoon, with the match heading to a shootout which Manawatu had been in a position to seal. It’s an amazing story for the affiliation who, simply a short time in the past, didn’t have a full staff, a supervisor, or a coach for the event.
The gang was at capability for the subsequent ultimate of the day, as native hopefuls Otago took on pre-tournament favourites Wellington within the Tier 1 Males’s gold medal match. Each side had a sense of what to anticipate after taking part in one another in pool play only a day earlier than – Otago profitable that conflict 1-0 with Wellington already having certified to play for gold.
Within the ultimate, the perimeters couldn’t be separated within the first quarter as each groups created possibilities however couldn’t convert. The match then turned on its head within the second, as Otago scored 3 targets in 10 minutes to take a robust lead into the half-time break. Otago scored once more within the third to make it 4-0 with 20 minutes to play.
A fightback was at all times on the playing cards for Wellington, with Graeme Murrell scoring two minutes later and captain Dane Lett scoring his third penalty nook objective of the event within the 54th minute to make it 4-2.
It proved too little, too late for the lads from the capital, because the locals held on for an historic victory at house whereas chants of “Otago” rang via the group. It was the primary time the Otago males have received a nationwide title and the primary for the affiliation because the ladies did it in 1987.
Capping off an amazing event for Canterbury, their males’s A staff claimed the Tier 1 Bronze medal after defeating Auckland, whereas their males’s B staff, the notorious ‘Beavers,’ received Tier 2 honours.
That Tier 2 Males’s ultimate capped off a implausible week of the Ford Nationwide Hockey Championship in Ōtepoti Dunedin. The inaugural event, changing the Ford NHL, noticed 104 matches performed between 35 groups and proved to be a celebration of group hockey in New Zealand.
