New Zealand Series: Men’s and Women’s Australian Country Teams in good form on Day One
The Men’s and Women’s Australian Country XI teams both resisted from losing a match and successfully ended the first day of New Zealand series with a win at 2-1 and a draw at 1-1 respectively. The match took place at the National Hockey Stadium in Wellington
on April 10.
The series is to continue from April 9-22 at four various locations.
In both the games, the U21 Capitals had a great match with the visiting teams on their home soil. The Australian Men’s and Women’s were found in good form, giving tough time to the young players of the host country.
In the Women’s match, the U21 Capitals team ended up with a draw at 1-1. During the game, the Capitals’ Women produced many good opportunities to score but failed to convert them into a count on the scoreboard. These Women are hoping to avenge in the April
11 match at the same venue.
In the Men’s match, the Wellington team found it hard to match up against the stamina of the visiting team. Conclusively, the Australian Men defeated the U21 with a score of 2-1.
The Australians were impressive during the first day of the New Zealand series and are planning to return home victorious.
The Australian hockey Men’s and Women’s teams had previously taken off for New Zealand on April 9 for the two-week tour of the country. Both teams will be looking to put in a strong performance and dominate early to take an advantage in the competitive Series.
Both squads were selected from the 2010 Australian Country Championship are required to play seven matches each with the Under-21 players in four different venues. These selected venues are situated in Wellington, Hamilton, Rotorua and Auckland respectively.
The Australian Women’s country squad was accompanied by Sonia Taylor as the team manager, Jeffrey Aldridge as Coach with two deputies namely Warren Gaynor and Craig Williams.
On contrary, the Men’s country squad had Keith Wilkie as team manager, Robert Laffin as Coach with an assistant named Jai Singhota.
On the whole, the tour manager for Australia is Michael Nelson followed by a supporting staff Ashley Stoll and Derek Gawthorne as Statistician, Donna Douglass as Videographer, Scott Maroske as Umpire and Raymond Patton as Masseur.
Both Australian teams did well on the first day of the New Zealand Series. It will be interesting to see how far the teams will go against some of the other fine competition in the Series. The performance of both Australian teams gives
a good indication of new potential players that may have the ability to play in National squads.
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