Winning way nothing new for Yeo

It was nothing new for Dalefield's Rowan Yeo when he was part of the Capital squad which won the New Zealand under-21 men's hockey tournament in Whangarei over the weekend.
Yeo, 21, was playing for Capital at this tourney for the fourth consecutive season and they had also been winners in 2006 and 2007.
He was one of two Wairarapa players in this year's line-up with the other, Shane Hodgkiss, 17, being at the other end of the experience spectrum. He was debuting for Capital at this level.
Capital started the round-robin section impressively at Whangarei with a 7-0 victory over Central in their opening match being followed by a 7-2 hiding of Midlands. Then came a 2-1 defeat by Canterbury, an 8-1 beating of Southern and a 5-1 win over Auckland.
That victory over Auckland was vital because it guaranteed Capital a place in the grand final and Yeo said Capital had approached it as if it was the final itself.
"We went out there determined to give it to them and everything went pretty much as we wanted," he said. "Beating Auckland is always a good feeling, and to do it so comfortably was even better!"
Capital's last round-robin game was against the North Harbour-based Northern side which had also guaranteed themselves a grand final berth and, wisely, Capital management decided to rest some of their key players so as to keep Northern guessing as to their capabilities.
Northern scored the only goal of the match to win 1-0 but Yeo said the Capital squad, which contained no fewer than five Junior Black Sticks, were "pretty confident" they could reverse that result in the grand final.
"It gave us a fair idea of how they played and we thought we could probably get the measure of them at full strength," he said. "We weren't over confident or anything like that but there were positive feelings, that's for sure."
As it happened the grand final was one-way traffic on the scoreboard with Capital scoring an early goal to lead 1-0 at halftime and adding three more in the second, two of them in the last few minutes when Northern 2-0 down at that stage threw caution to the wind by replacing their goalkeeper and having practically all their 11 players go in search of goals.
It was an understandable move but left holes in the defence from which Capital capitalised to add two more goals to their tally and win by 4-0.
For Yeo, who played regularly in the forward line and scored six goals, it was the last time he would be eligible for the under-21 tourney and he was delighted to finish on a winning note.
"I always thought we were in with a big chance but you can never be too sure what will happen at tournaments, upsets are not unusual there," he said.
Meanwhile, matches in the Wairarapa division one women's hockey competition got under way over the weekend with the late defection of Dalefield Dazzlers meaning the young Wairarapa College second XI having to be moved up from division two to take on Cossie Red Star. The more experienced Red Star won 5-1 but the pupils were far from disgraced.
Dalefield Gold and Red Star White had a close battle with last year's champions Dalefield Gold winning 2-1 and there was little in the Dalefield Black v Featherston match either, Dalefield Black winning 3-2.