HOCKEY - Founders Cup winners seek perfect season

When Robyn Bruce watched her Otamatea High School hockey team beat another Northland high school team by four goals in a warm-up match, she knew she might be sitting on something special.
But even she was stunned when her side managed to win the Founders Cup division one boys' hockey tournament in Oamaru last week.
It might be about to get even better yet though. Because soon after Otamatea won the tournament in convincing form in Oamaru last week, her players turned around and announced the next plan.
"They want the perfect season now," Bruce said.
"We have gone through the year so far with no losses, no draws, we have won a national title and we are aiming for the club title up here as well," she said.
"So the latest talk is aiming for the perfect season."
As Bruce has learned with her team - a squad that has been together now for five years - when the players start stating goals, you are best to start listening.
By adopting a plan to hand a big slice of the team coaching duties to the players, Bruce said the success this season has been due to an almost invincible team spirit.
It was that team unity that worked in Otamatea's favour in Oamaru, now the sheer determination to finish the season on a high is making quite an impact.
"We played some very good hockey to win the Founders Cup, players like Jareth Cocking and Andrew McLennan were quite outstanding and Jareth's younger brother Ryan as well," she said.
"It was sort of a culmination of five years of hard work on my part and the boys part that we got this far and managed to achieve a big goal."
Along the way Bruce said input from Northland hockey development coach Bevan Gibbs had been invaluable and, for the last six weeks, she had deliberately stepped back from hands-on coaching to let the players take a stronger leadership role.
It worked a treat.
"It was one of the things I learned at one of those coaching courses, to hand more responsibility to the players themselves.
"So for about the last six weeks things like team drills the players all do themselves."
In Oamaru,Otamatea High School beat Greymouth High, Verdon College and Logan Park High in pool games, scoring convincing wins over Greymouth High (6-0) and Kings High (8-0) in the quarterfinal and semifinal respectively before grabbing the title with a thrilling 7-6 win over Orewa High School in the final.
It proved to be quite a week for Northland hockey, with Whangarei Girls' High School winning the premier school girls' hockey title, the Federation Cup, in Christchurch as well.
Caption details: The winning Otamatea High School 1st XI hockey team who picked up the Founders Cup secondary schools title. From back left are Casey Huband, Robyn Bruce (coach), Ethan Montgomery-Williams, Greg Henderson, Callum Tong, Andrew Maclennan, Kieran Hales, Ryan Cocking, Jamie Maclennan, Frances Maclennan (manager), Brett Robinson, Roland Brown, Jared Hales, Bradley Kemp, Jareth Cocking (goalie).