HOCKEY - Both teams achieve their goals

Although Northland didn't bring any trophies home from the National Hockey League tournament they did emerge from yesterday's finals day with their pride intact.
Both teams achieved their pre-tournament aims and overall Northland improved slightly on their national ranking at the 10-day contest at Lloyd Elsmore Park in Pakuranga.
The aim of the women's team was simply to compete against the top teams after losing most of their players from last season's squad. They managed that and then some, coming agonisingly close to reaching the final.
Instead they lost 1-2 to Midlands in the third and fourth playoff yesterday, retaining the same national ranking they first achieved in 2007.
The men's stated aim was to avoid the wooden spoon and they did with an extra-time 2-1 win over Southern yesterday in the seventh and eighth-placed playoff.
Northland had not won a game at the tournament in two years. Captain John Child said the two wins this year felt like a major success. "It was good to get the monkey off our back after finishing eighth for the last two years," he said. "We improved as the tournament went on - there's no doubt about that - and played some really good hockey and to come away with two wins, well we couldn't really ask for any more."
They had pushed a couple of the top teams during the tournament, most notably Canterbury, but they weren't strong enough to claim the scalp of a major team.
The women's round-robin campaign started with a costly 1-2 loss to Central and finished with a 2-3 loss to Auckland, thanks to a winner-take-all call from Auckland coach Tina Bell. Level 2-2 with the winner to go on to face North Harbour in the final, Bell took off her goalkeeper with four minutes to go and Black Stick Honor Dillon duly produced the winner.
"That loss to Central came back to haunt us but if we could have done it all again, I don't really know if there was anything we could have done that would have made a significant difference," coach Grant McLeod said.
Northland produced their best for nearly every game, earning wins over Midlands, Southern, Canterbury and last year's champions Wellington.
Senior players like Tarannah Vette, Laura Douglas, Anna Thorpe and Nicky Matthews were the backbone of the team's success but it was the emerging players like Jasmin McQuinn, Jacinda McLeod, Natasha Cotton and Jade McLeod as well as guest players Danielle Jones and Rebecca Williams who stepped up to push the team as far as it got.
"I'd like to say it bodes well for us next year but I realise that we're going to lose four or five of those girls to university next year, so there may be gaps again," McLeod said. "I haven't made any decisions about whether or not I'll do it again next year but Northland will have to appoint a coach a lot earlier than it did this year so we can get on track earlier."
North Harbour, featuring four former Northland players Carli and Stacey Michelsen, Alana Millington and Kelsey Dunn beat Auckland 3-2 in the women's final to win the title, while the Challenge Shield was won by Midlands with an upset 4-2 win over Auckland.
* Super Gran's top performance sparks plan to go for 200th cap
There was only one player that was going to get nicknamed "granny" in the Northland women's National Hockey League team, and that was veteran Tarannah Vette.
"Granny was the secret code for our penalty corner move," Vette laughed.
"But it ended up not being very secret. I mean, I'm the oldest in the team by about a million years, so the nickname stuck," she said.
A 20-year age difference between Vette and the team's youngest players - 16-year-olds Brooke Neal and Jade McLeod - wasn't apparent on the turf, with the veteran everywhere during the Auckland tournament. Vette's contribution as the midfield distributor cannot be under-rated. She also scored five goals - making her the team's top-scorer for the tournament.
At 36, Vette has made 194 appearances for Northland and her inspirational form during last week's NHL tournament has encouraged her to go for her 200th cap next season.
Northland battled hard at the Pakuranga tournament to record results that many - including the players - thought were beyond them.
After losing 2-3 to Auckland on Saturday they had to settle for fourth after losing the playoff for third 1-2 against Midlands yesterday.
"Our coach (Grant McLeod) admitted that he thought that making the playoff for fifth and sixth would have been a pretty good effort, so we've definitely done a lot better than anyone really expected, including ourselves," Vette said.
"I think some us really expected to be near the bottom of the table and in the end we were disappointed not to make the final, so that's how well we did."
The diverse nature of the team may have helped them play well together.
"The team spirit was excellent, with a combination of all sorts of ages and personalities, and we all seemed to click," she said. "We had far more names in the side last year, but I think there was a lot of guts and determination to succeed this year," she said.