Canty whips Otago

Press, 2 May 1988, Page 26

Canty whips Otago

By

KEVIN TUTTY

Canterbury maintained its record in representative women's hockey matches on artificial turf by beating Otago, the national champion, in three matches at Porritt Park at the week-end. Canterbury beat Otago 7-3, 3-1 and 4-0 in the series which was used by both teams as preparation for the Top Six tournament to be played at the same venue at the Queen’s Birthday weekend. Canterbury has not lost a game on artificial turf in' three years. Otago, to get used to the speed of artificial turf, has played its club matches indoors this season on a field 20m shorter and slightly narrower than a normal field, and the Otago coach, Jenny McDonald, said it took time for the Otago players to adapt to the larger field in the first game on Saturday. As a result Otago was four goals down at half-time, but fought back confidently after the interval and scored goal for goal with Canterbury, whose defence was made to look brittle in the face of determined dribbling by all the forwards, in particular, Tina Bell. Three of Canterbury’s firsthalf goals came from a penalty stroke and two penaltycorners from Mary Clinton. The other was an excellent goal scored by Kate Trolove. Canterbury went to a 6-0 lead with another Clinton penalty-corner and a goal by Isobel Thomson, but Otago showed tenacity to fight back to 6-2. Robyn McDonald completed an excellent rush down the centre by Bell whose final pass in the circle was right onto McDonald’s stick. Linda Robinson gave Otago further heart with a penaltycorner before Clinton scored her fifth goal from another penalty stroke. Robinson completed the scoring for Otago in the last minute. Otago had learnt from the lessons of the first game and marked more tightly, particularly in the mid-field in the second game. Otago had the better of the early attacks, but after eight minutes Cindy Rereti broke into the circle, and scored with an angled shot It was nine minutes into the second half before Rereti scored the second goal, a mis-hit shot bobbling past the defence. Hilary Stubbs struck back for Otago after 17 minutes. She broke down the inside right lane and at full speed from near the backline hit an angled shot into the goal. Canterbury’s third goal came two minutes from the end from a penalty stroke scored by Clinton. Both teams showed strain in the third game yesterday, and there were numerous errors. Canterbury, however, maintained an edge by showing more urgency in its play. Kate Trolove scored two goals in the first half, one a reverse stick shot from a penalty-corner rebound, and the other an open goal after the Otago defence was split by a long through pass. Clinton scored both Canterbury’s goals iri the second half from penalty-corners.