HOCKEY - United take a step down from top grade

NEWCOMERS to last year's Northland premier women's hockey competition, United Kawakawa, have ended their fleeting brush with the top grade.
The team of players from Kawakawa, Kerikeri and Okaihau stepped up last year to join the Whangarei-based teams in the premier grade, but have this year dropped back to reserve grade after requests from players.
Northland Hockey chief executive Grant McLeod said it was disappointing United Kawakawa had pulled out as he saw the team as a conduit for players from the Bay of Islands area.
"We saw it as an opportunity for the younger players to have their turn in premier hockey, while not having to travel to trainings with a Whangarei team," McLeod said.
So this year's women's competition has just five teams, meaning last year's winners Maungakaramea have a bye this week.
McLeod predicts Maungakaramea to be strong again in 2008, despite having lost several players from last year.
"But they've still got that good nucleus of their key players."
He said Hikurangi have brought on a bunch of younger players this year, while Old Girls always put on a strong showing.
Kamo High have been bolstered by former Maungakaramea player Natasha Cotton and a import from the deep south - Anna Weir from Gore.
There were less team changes on the men's side, with the Maungakaramea men still looking strong after their win in 2007, McLeod said.
There are still many more women playing hockey in Northland than men, with figures in the Association's 2007 Annual Report putting the numbers of women playing versus men at two to one.
McLeod said they are always pushing to promote hockey amongst men, but in Northland they're just fighting the numbers.
"It just seems to be the way it is, that the women outnumber the men. Down in Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty, I know they're got more men playing than women. Just one of those things."
In the Northland junior grades, games were often scheduled mid-week so as not to clash with boys' other sports like soccer and rugby at the weekends.
Long-term plans to expand premier hockey around the district will have to wait, as Whangarei has the only proper hockey turf in Northland.
McLeod welcomed recent moves by the Far North District Council to give more than $1 million to help fund a Kaikohe turf, which he said would prove an asset to gaining teams from that area in the future.
"But it's not like a new turf will immediately produce senior-grade teams. It'll be a case of the younger players being able to develop with better facilities in their areas."