Dalefield faces relegation threat

Dalefield men's hockey coach Mark Fenwick says it will be a tragedy if his team suffers defeat in their Wellington premier division fixture with Victoria University at the National Hockey Stadium in Wellington tomorrow.
A sentiment which is easy to understand when you consider that the loser of tomorrow's playoff for fifth and sixth will then have to endure the pressures of a promotion-relegation match to stay in the premier league.
Which would be especially hard on Dalefield which finished preliminary round play on 10 points, seven more than University, a statistic which counts for nothing in tomorrow's game.
"It's back to square one for this one&&.. win and you stay where you are, lose and you face the prospect of relegation," he said.
Previous encounters with University suggest Dalefield should have the edge on them. Their first clash resulted in a 2-2 draw with Dalefield winning the second 3-2 and the third by a decisive 8-3.
However, Fenwick is very wary of reading too much into those results as he has no difficulty recalling last season when Dalefield went into the same playoff match with an inferior record to Harbour City-Tawa and beat them comfortably.
Fenwick is confident that Dalefield have the team to put University to the sword again. A couple of their regulars in Todd Sugrue and Thamas Merriman have headed offshore but with talent like Daniel Juno, Rowan Yeo and Mark Duxbury to show the way he believes that, all things being equal, a decisive win should be in the offing.
The Dalefield women's team put up a brave fight against Eastern Hutt before losing their Wellington premier division semi-final match 2-0 on Tuesday night, and they are out to finish the season on a high note when they play off for third and fourth against Victoria University in Wellington tomorrow
Coach Rochelle Retter said there was "absolutely no chance" of Dalefield taking a less-than-serious approach into this match.
"We want to finish third, not fourth," she said.
Everybody is on the same wave length, it's not a game we want to lose.".
Retter has justifiably been delighted with the progress made by Dalefield in 2008 for this time 12 months ago they were at the very bottom of the heap
"It's nice not to have the threat of relegation hanging over us this time," she said.