'Fearless' play took team to the top

Onerahi Kindergarten's head teacher Anna Thorpe is back in the classroom after time in the limelight with the triumphant Champions Challenge title-winning Black Sticks, in Cape Town.
After five weeks off work, spending time with the Black Sticks in South Africa, and with Northland at the National Hockey League tournament in Christchurch before the Champions Challenge in September, the 25-year-old was happy to be home.
"South Africa was an eye-opener both personally, seeing the shanty towns and kilometres of refugees, and hockey-wise - it was awesome," she said  after her return on Wednesday.
After winning their first pool-play match against Spain, the Black Sticks continued their successful run to make it through to Sunday's final against South Africa. "The team gelled well and improved throughout, we played very aggressive hockey during the tournament.
"All the critics were saying a good outcome for us would be to make the top four but no one in the team ever doubted themselves and we all kept saying 'we've got this, we can win this game' - it was really pleasing," the midfielder said.
Black Sticks coach Mark Hager told his team only what those critics had been saying the night before the final, providing even more motivation to dominate South Africa - which they did to win the match 2-1, and tournament.
Ranked 11th in the world heading into the week-long Champions Challenge, New Zealand's win saw them elevated to ninth in the standings, and promoted to play in the Champions Trophy at Nottingham in 2010 for the first time in four years.
Australia, meanwhile, has been dropped from the Champions Trophy featuring the top-six teams in the world, despite being ranked fifth, as hosts' England gain automatic entry to the tournament.
It was another setback for the Aussies, who lost to NZ at the recent Oceania Cup.
Since Hager took over the coaching role from Kevin Towns after the Black Sticks' dismal 2008 Olympics campaign, he has established a youthful stable of promising players who are continuing to improve and surprise their critics.
"Mark has been absolutely fantastic - and huge credit to him. The team has changed, we play so aggressively now and we are fearless," Thorpe said.
Next year, will present many challenges for the Black Sticks, with the Champions Trophy, the World Cup in Argentina and the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, and while NZ could definitely be competitive at the next level, the Black Sticks needed to play more international matches beforehand.
"Most countries get around 50 tests - at the most we are averaging around 20. If we had more test matches it would help heaps - we train hard and do everything else right we just need more competition to measure ourselves."
After her Black Sticks debut this year, Thorpe was aiming to make next year's touring team of 18 selected from a 24-strong squad, and she was ready to put in the hard work required in the coming months.
"We have a month off from training and hockey altogether now - and no travelling - which is good.
"Then it's training hard-out over the summer.
"We have our first training camp in January when the new squad of 24 (chosen after the NHL) come together.
"It's not hard to be motivated to train, though, with such a big year ahead."