SOCCER - Women to tackle best in country

There seems to be no holding women's soccer back globally and nationally, but the game in Whangarei is set to step into the big time in 2009 with North Force women promoted to play in the top league in the country.
It is the news that young North Force strikers, Vicky-Jo Hemara (17) and Hannah Wilkinson (16), have been waiting two years to hear - that they will be playing in the Northern Premier League next year.
"It's a chance for us to improve and to get spotted," they say.
Getting spotted will certainly be easier when you play against teams like Western Springs - who are packed with international players like former Whangarei international Abby Erceg and coached by national coach John Herdman - and the girls are under no illusion how tough the learning curve will be.
"It's going to be a very big challenge to start with - huge really - but we played a premier team, Waitakere, in the Uncle Toby's cup this year and only lost 0-1, but we really played our hearts out and that's what we're going to have to do every week," Hemara said.
For supporters of the game in Whangarei it has been a week to remember with Government funding agency Sparc recognising women's soccer as an elite sport, granting it $725,000 over the next four years for the Football Ferns' build-up to the next World Cup.
North Force 2007 coach Bruce Plunkett said whoever took the girls this year would have to be a good motivator. "It's easy enough to rise for one game but cup games are totally different.
"Week-in, week-out it will be a hell of a lot tougher for them ... the key is to set different goals - the goal in the past has been winning the league but now they'll have to revise that," he said.
Plunkett said the promotion was great news and what the team deserved after winning the United Soccer 1 (Northland/North Harbour) league for three years in a row.
"I think they'll struggle initially, it's like when the Northland rugby team were promoted they took a hammering, but they'll do okay once they get up to the level they need to be at."
Wilkinson said promotion couldn't have come quick enough.
"I'm looking forward to it. We're sick of playing the same mediocre teams all the time and beating them really easily, playing up a level is where we belong," she said.
No-one can say the promotion wasn't deserved. North Force won the league in their first year in the top US1 division in 2006 and repeated the feat the following year.
Many players wanted promotion then, but with several players leaving the team, it was decided to wait another year and rebuild the team. The team won the US1 title again this season and applied successfully to join the Northern Premier League.
Even if there are players leaving this year, women's football in Whangarei has become strong enough to replace them.
"The game here is getting pretty popular and the girls are getting better younger.
"There are little girls who are being picked up and shipped off to US1 training squads now," Wilkinson said.
The new league will provide a baptism of fire for the young players but they are ready and waiting.
"It's definitely going to improve the way we play. We've always wanted to get promotion after starting the team, we wanted to move up then but something always prevented us. Now it's a challenge we want," Hemara said.