Defence Forces Hockey

Celebrate Return to National Competition

The Defence Force’s Men’s Hockey team won the national senior hockey tournament held in Christchurch.

After a week of very challenging competition the men found themselves playing Bay of Plenty in the finals after not dropping a single game in round robin play. The final proved to be a very close game with both sides very evenly matched. The score was deadlocked at nil all until SQNLDR Mark Stevens managed to drive home a layoff drag flick with only four minutes left on the clock. With three penalty corners awarded against the BOP and none against the NZDF team, the NZDF’s able defense led by team captain POSA Randall Bartholomew, and outstanding goal keeping by AET1 Harley Kopa was one of the telling factors in the NZDF victory. While the final was very wide open, in the end the NZDF men’s fitness and discipline came to be the telling factor, as they held out a concerted attack in the dying minutes by the Bay of Plenty team, with the NZDF team holding onto their composure.

The tournament was very close all week with no one team dominating in the competition. There were four teams with a realistic chance of making the top two playoffs with a day left to play in the round robin competition. That the NZDF team managed to win their division was a great effort considering they came together as a team for the first time the Wednesday before the competition started, and the first time that a combined Defence Forces team has come to this tournament, with hockey only being recognised at Defence Force level for a year. Assistant Coach SQNLDR Kelvin Read, himself very highly recognised at Combined Services sport, said “I’ve always rated Defence Forces hockey pretty highly, and it’s great to get this opportunity to show it off. Since our first time together the goal was to win, and that’s exactly what we’ve done. Other teams found NZDF difficult to play as we were too structured, too organised and too fit.” Coach SSGT Abe Pourau added that the team aspect was already there “we just had to get them on the same page plan wise,” describing the result as “a great result for our inaugural year.”

The Womens’ team was not so fortunate. After finishing fourth equal in their division, the women were relegated to the playoff for fifth and sixth on goal difference, a game they won 1-0 against West Coast. After a strong start the women were ruing lost opportunities that could have seen the score line much higher. After a sustained attack in the first half that resulted in a goal by FGOFF Patricia O'Neil, the women had to weather a determined counterattack by West Coast in the second half.

The women fought hard all week, with all but one result very close. In their first game against Counties Manakau, in which they went down 1-2, members of the Counties- Manakau team were very impressed at how well the DF team played together, considering that they had only come together four days before the tournament started. DF lead 1-0 heading into the last twenty minutes when injuries started to take their toll, with Counties-Manakau just managing to grab the winning goal in the last minutes.

For a team that had never played together prior to this tournament, the NZDF Women put in an excellent showing, and were always attacking until the last minute. Throughout the tournament they showed that they had the ability to compete with all the teams in their division with Coach, F/S J Boylan, suggesting that the results don’t show just how tough some of the games were. From their hasty preparations for the tournament, Coach Boylan said that the women ‘definitely built as a team as the week went on. All the games were well fought, and the girls played combinations. We only had two days to build the combinations that most regional teams had two months to put together.’

Both teams are looking forward to the future, with the Men’s team being promoted into the top of two divisions of the tournament, and the Women’s team having a solid base from which to build. Woman’s assistant coach FLTLT Brett Iggo, said it was great for NZDF to be competing at this level, especially after a long break.