Youthful sides has heaps of potential

The Northland men's hockey final squad of 18 was named for the upcoming National Hockey League and revealed a youthful side with plenty of scope to coach Vicki Gribble.
"The average age of team members would be early 20s - there is tonnes of untapped potential, it will just be a matter of whether we can pull it all together in time," she said.
Northland struggled to recruit overseas guest players, who would have infused the team with more experience and changed Northland's style of play, enabling them to be more competitive at the tournament, Gribble said.
Australia's club season overlapped with the league which gets under way for Northland on September 12 at Whangarei where they face North Harbour, before travelling to Christchurch for a week of competition from September 19.
This restricted availability of some possible players and added to this, two Australian Institute of Sport Development Team players, confirmed to play for Northland, withdrew at the last moment as a team tour to China coincided with the New Zealand tournament.
As a result Northland looked closer to home for guest players and had to wait until the last moment for North Harbour and Auckland to name their final teams on August 24, to see who was left.
"The bulk of the team are defenders so we were mainly looking for midfielders and strikers," Gribble said.
North Harbour strikers, Sam Bartholomew, Vinnie Brill, and Brad Macleod along with defenders Nick Binks and Matt Hawley, were brought into the Northland fold while Wellington's Greg Painter, who currently plays hockey in Sydney, was recruited for his goal-keeping attributes early on in the piece.
"Greg (Painter) is a huge asset for us - he's pushing at making the Black Sticks and he has played for Northland before," Gribble said.
For more than half the team, this year's NHL will be their first and the step up is substantial, the coach explained.
"They have the ability to do it, we just need to concentrate in the lead up on adjusting to the pace of the game which is a lot faster," she said.
On Saturday, Northland play Midlands in another pre-NHL match, followed by a game against Auckland on Sunday.
Painter's availability was confirmed for the September 19 match against Canterbury at Christchurch and in the meantime, Springfield's Rob Nichol would continue to fill the goal-keep position.
Northland: Greg Paynter (guest player), Rob Nichol, Sam Webb, Matt Hawley (gp), Nick Breslin, Tama Jones, Dave Adams, Craig Thorn, Strechen McLeod, Nick Binks (gp), Tom Keogh, Brad Cotton, Dave Heappey, Ian Paige, Ryan Cocking, Brad MacLeod (gp), Vinnie Brill (gp), Sam Bartholomew (gp).