Monday, May 17, 2004 2:23 PM
NZ Masters players have just beaten Australia in the recent Trans Tasman test series in Wellington.
Four women's master teams (35, 40, 45 & 50+) and two men's teams (45 & 55+) just competed in a three match test series against their Australian counterparts in Wellington last week (May 12 -15). The overall Trans Tasman throphy was won by NZ 11 matches to 7, but was in the balance until the last day as it was all tied up with 6 matches each after 2 days. Wellington turned on one of its strong cool sounterlies on Saturday which worked to the NZ team's advantage as we won 5 out of the six matches and only lost the 6th, the 50+ women on strokes after extra time couldn't break the deadlock.
The NZ 35W team was impressive in each of its three games, convincinglywinning all three matches. This team was coached by ex-Waikato coach, Doug Sommerville and managed by Debbie Balme, the current Miidland men's manager. There were several Waikato players in the team: Maria Dunn, Wendy Mackay, and Robbie Matthews and included two players from Wanganui who play for our masters team at Nationals; Anna Symes and Jan Dixon.
The 45 men and women's teams also won gold by beating their counterparts,the 45M won all their matches and the 45W won 2 out of 3.
The Australian teams won the following grades: W40, W50 and M55. So the gold medals were awarded to 3 NZ teams and 3 Australian teams.Other Waikato players to take part were: Sandra Laird, Jocelyn Sawyer and Michele Whitehead (W40's), Jackie Wolff W50's, Allan Isaac and Paul Singh M55's.
The next event expected for Masters teams will be the International Master Tournament in Malaysia for 35W, 40 & 50M in December 2004. It was announced that there is a high probablilty of a Masters world cup event to be organised by FIH in Brsbane, Australia next April to include teams from six nations, NZ, Australia, UK, Holland, Germany & South Africa and in four grades: 35 & 45 Women, 40 & 50 Men. This is an exciting development for Masters hockey as it will enable NZ teams to play against other nations on a regular basis. This tournament will hopefully be confirmed in June and it may affect whether all teams will participate in the Malaysian tournament this year.
Cheers
Bridget
FILE PHOTO: Allan Isaac: Long standing NZ Masters Representative, played for Waikato as a senior representative.
His jacket displays the venues of the many times he has represented New Zealand both here and overseas. Allan is ? years of age; but you'd never guess it!