Celtic ecstatic at title

Celtic netball coach Dayle Clarkson was always confident her team were playing well enough to beat Kuranui College in Monday's exciting Wairarapa premier one grand final at the Genesis Recreation Centre.
Their 51-48 victory was closer than most pundits imagined after Celtic had walloped Kuranui by about 20 goals at their previous clash but Clarkson never considered the possibility of a loss.
"Honestly I didn't. I never look at the scoreboard, I just watch the players and judge how well they are going and I was pleased with what I was seeing," she said.
"Obviously there wasn't a lot in it but, yes, I always thought we would come through."
What delighted Clarkson most about the victory was the positive input by all members of her squad with changes to personnel having little, or no, effect on their standard of performance.
"It was a true team effort and that's what you want when the pressure is on," she said. "And they (Kuranui) put us under plenty of that, they certainly came to play didn't they?".
Interestingly enough Clarkson cannot guarantee Celtic will be back to defend their title in 2010, or at least not the majority of the current line-up.
She said that would largely depend on the outcome of the end-of-season competition review which could see some clubs keen to return to the old system of playing some premier one games on Saturdays.
It was because of that very reason Celtic did not field a premier one team in 2008 with several of their would-be players involved in other activity at the weekends and Clarkson said nothing was likely to change in that respect.
"We will just have to wait and see what transpires but, quite frankly, Saturday play does no favours for us," she said.
Kuranui College manager Jo Crimp was understandably thrilled with the performance of her side in Monday's final, saying they had gone into the match determined to make a close game of it.
"We talked a lot about not being intimidated by the occasion, of giving it heaps all the way through and I think we did that," she said. "Even though we lost everybody was so proud afterwards, we knew we had given it our best shot"
Crimp said the week-long involvement in the lower North Island secondary schools championships leading into the grand final was a positive for Kuranui with players being match hardened and combinations finally tuned as a result of it.
Kuranui placed third in the B section at that tourney - two places better than the previous year - and had two players, sisters Te Ata Phillips and Waimarama Phillips, included in the tournament team.