Hockey: Results give Auckland food for thought

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Defending champions Auckland and last season's beaten finalists North Harbour will not be looking to this year's national league with any great confidence following the weekend's warm-up matches.

In Wellington, Auckland beat the home side 4-3 after leading 3-1 at halftime, with goals from Phil Lowe, Johnno Brooker, Marc Laurence and Umesh Hari, but earlier lost 1-0 to Canterbury.

In the third of the round-robin matches in the Metro league, Wellington upset Canterbury 3-1.

Canterbury had two good wins in the women's competition, beating Auckland 4-2 and Wellington 5-4, while Wellington downed Auckland 4-0.

Although the matches gave some indicators for the Lion Foundation League, which hits-off next month, most teams were without their Commonwealth Games players which, particularly in Auckland's case, will make a huge difference.

Northland bounced back from their loss to North Harbour at Queen's Birthday Weekend to thump them 4-1 in Whangarei after Gary Sands had given the home side a 1-0 lead at halftime.

Despite six penalty corners to one in the second half, North Harbour managed just one Lloyd Stephenson goal. Christian Stanton, John Child and David Samuels scored for Northland.