Northland teams go down to Auckland

Northland men had a close pre-tournament encounter with closest rivals Auckland at Whangarei, going down 3-2 in a hard-fought contested match ahead of the National Hockey League.
Northland, who named their final 18 yesterday, were missing several players through injury, including Cameron Hellier, Josh Ratana, Sean Laidlaw and Strachan McLeod along with their five guest players, who will join the team shortly before the NHL starts on July 30.
Coach Mike Delaney was impressed with what he witnessed at the Rosvall ITM Stadium yesterday. "We're quite excited after yesterday's result seeing as we still have some very good players to come into the mix ... we have already improved after last year and developing what we have been practising but we don't want to give all our tricks away too soon," Delaney said.
Northland started well, with wider squad member Alex Nicholson scoring first after 15 minutes. Auckland replied to level the score to 1-1 at halftime and scored again soon after the break off a penalty corner.
With their tails up, Auckland finished off a breakaway by finding the back of the goal.
Northland fought back hard to get back in the game and Sam Webb delivered the ball safely into goal from a PC.
The Northland men had several more opportunities to equalise but Auckland defended solidly to keep them out.
While the coaches were excited about what they saw they were not getting too far ahead of themselves yet.
"Auckland also had about five or six key players out, so it will be interesting when we play each other again at the tournament," Delaney said.
The Northland women were also in action against Auckland yesterday in their second pre-tournament match. They were also missing a large core group of their team - with their Black Sticks and guest players yet to join the team.
Coach Alan Lints promoted six Northland Under-18 players for the clash, which Northland lost 2-1.
Auckland came out all guns blazing, pressuring and intimidating the younger, less experienced Northland team, and scored two goals in the first 20 minutes. Lints started rotating the Under-18 players to cope with the "ferocious" pace of the visitors, but kept his "old heads" Laura Douglas, Carli Michelsen and Jasmin McQuinn in the midfield for the entire match.
Just before halftime, Northland's Jess McAlister scored to put Northland back in the game.
 Northland Team Northland Men's team (final 18) to contest the NHL:
Cameron Hellier, Josh Ratana, Sean Laidlaw, Strachan McLeod, Nick Capizzi (North Harbour), Lewis Brill (Wellington), Chris Seddon (England), Paul Fordhan (North Harbour), John Child, Sam Webb, Dave Adams, Henry Cooper, Ivo Rongon, Dave Samuels, Keeley Johnson, Craig Armstrong (Midlands), Jimmy Bailey, Shay Neal.