Hockey: Northland reach new cup heights

Stacey Michelsen vies for the ball against Auckland's Liz Thompson during Northland's 3-0 win in round two of the national hockey league. Photo / Photosport

Northland's women's hockey team reached unheralded heights with their second place finish in the 2014 National Hockey League K Cup.

Therefore, the opportunity to go one better is an imminent possibility as the side look ahead to the NHL festival week at Whangarei's ITM Hockey Centre, September 12-20.

Making a strong statement with a 3-0 upset win over favourites Auckland last weekend, Northland women's coach Angeline Waetford is enjoying keeping the opposition sides guessing.

"That would have been a surprise result around the country," Waetford said of the shock round two win over Auckland.

"After the game I said to the girls it was a pleasing result for obvious reasons, but the week before we lost to North Harbour. Now it's like 'Northland beat Auckland 3-0', and that will send a message to the country that we did trip up the week before but we rectified that."

Returning to the drawing board after going down 2-1 to North Harbour in the opening round of the NHL, the onus was on the Northland side to front up against Auckland.

Losing prominent midfielder Ella Gunson in the warm-up to the Auckland match didn't help their cause, however it was a largely reinvigorated team which took to the turf - a win which saw Anna Thorpe pocket two goals and Carli Michelsen seal the deal with the third in the dying minutes.

"At practice during the week on Tuesday and Thursday nights we pretty much did one drill for four hours," Waetford said.

"It was just mainly reinforcing how we're going to play our attack and we did that really well. We felt that if there is any area you can expose Auckland, and that if there was any area they were going to be vulnerable, it was going to be their defence and back three."

Looking to back their surprise win up with another strong outing versus Midlands on home turf this weekend, Waetford is much more weary of the threat they pose.

"To me they are the favourites on paper, to me they have the team to do it," she said.

"Midlands is another kettle of fish because of their personnel. They have Black Sticks right through the layers of their team."

Despite how good Auckland, Midlands and Canterbury may look on paper, Waetford admits there is "great belief in this team ... that we can take that extra step and win it this year."