Northland men and women playing for pride

Avoiding the wooden spoon matches should give the Northland senior hockey teams the motivation to upset their rivals in their respective NHL playoff matches today.

Northland Men finished in bottom place in the pool stage of the tournament, like their female counterparts, and now face a talented Midlands side.

Midlands won as many games as the top-placed finisher Capital in the round robin series but still missed out on the semifinals and they will be out to prove a point.

"They're not as strong as they have been in the past few seasons but they've still got some pretty handy players including the Aussie Olympian Tim Bevan and a couple of the Black Sticks," Northland coach Dave Adams said.

Northland will be trying to turn around a 7-1 defeat in their match on Wednesday but Adams said the challenge was not beyond them.

"We're by no means out of our depth here, we've played pretty well in parts and hopefully by valuing the ball in the midfield we can show how competitive we be can be in our last two games."

The key was to break the patterns of the matches to date.

"We've been in the game at half time in nearly all our matches and then given away crucial turnovers in the middle of the turf and that's cost us dearly," he said.

The side drew with semifinalists North Harbour and went down to another semifinalist, Southern, by a single goal on Thursday.

If they can stop haemorrhaging goals in bunches and remain in touch with their opposition then they will be able to surprise in their two remaining matches.

The women's side have gradually made ground on the other teams during the tournament. Their first three games saw them score one goal and concede 16, but their recent form has seen them close the gap on the other sides.

The side faces fifth-placed Capital today, knowing they pushed them hard on Wednesday before going down 3-2 in pool play.

The winner of the match plays the winner of the other playoff match, between Southern and Central, for fifth while the losers play off for the wooden spoon tomorrow.