Black Stick's Anna on a high after Oceania Cup victory

Whangarei Black Stick Anna Thorpe summed up her team's Oceania Cup win over Australia as "unbelievable".
Almost a week after the final at Invercargill, Thorpe still found it hard to believe the Kiwis had secured their direct entry to next year's World Cup with the victory.
"It's an amazing feeling - quite unbelievable actually," she said.
Although the Black Sticks were defending champions of the Oceania Cup, the world fifth-ranked Australian side were clear favourites heading into the tournament ahead of the 11th-ranked New Zealanders and Samoa, ranked 57th.
A week before the tournament, Black Sticks gathered in Dunedin for their first training camp since their test series against Argentina and China. Thorpe said they  practised set play, penalty corners and strokes, which paid off at Oceania Cup.
New Zealand faced Australia first up in Invercargill and went down 2-1 after an anxious start.
"It was a funny feeling - we were extremely nervous and the Aussies got their two goals in the first four minutes," Thorpe said.
After a while, however, the Black Sticks found their form and started playing their own game, believing they could match them.
Black Caps then played Samoa and defeated them comfortably, seeing them through to the final against Australia.
Nerves were cast aside this time when the Black Sticks met the Aussies and an intense contest followed, where there was plenty of ball turnover and a huge number of penalty corners going Australia's way.
However, the Black Sticks guarded their goal relentlessly - a huge improvement from when they played Argentina, Thorpe said.
At the 70-minute mark, the score was locked at 2-2, and the score was still level after 14 minutes extra time.
"It went down to strokes ... Casey Eastham missed her sixth and then Kate Mahon slotted the winning goal for us," Thorpe said.
Still high on the victory, Thorpe returned home this week along with fellow Black Sticks Charlotte Harrison and Ella Gunson to start training with the Northland women for their upcoming National Hockey League campaign, which gets under way at Whangarei against North Harbour on September 12.
This year's NHL was shaping up to be a more challenging contest, with New Zealand Hockey requiring players to compete in the league to be eligible for the Black Sticks squad.
Although her immediate focus was on Northland's pre-NHL matches with Midlands tomorrow  and Auckland on Sunday, Thorpe and her team mates were waiting to hear whether they were included in the squad travelling to South Africa for next month's Champions Challenge.
The 18-women squad will be named on Monday for the tournament where the Black Sticks will be up against countries ranked seventh to 12th in the world, including South Africa, Japan, Chile, Korea, Italy, Spain and Azerbaijan.
"Any of the 24 girls in the Black Sticks squad have a chance at being selected - including all the girls from Northland," Thorpe said.