Junior sport

We hope you all enjoyed a well-earned break over the school holidays as we head into the second half of the hockey season with all the flooding and snow hopefully behind us.

The new Tuesday 6-aside format seems to be working well, with a huge number of teams from all over the Wairarapa participating. There are so many teams that it took over a month for the grading games to be completed! We have the Rockets playing in the Blue grade the Micros and the Magic both playing in the Yellow grade. These teams train on Monday lunchtimes at school under the careful guidance of Liz Larkin, Kiely Marshall and Kerry Campbell. The kids’ enthusiasm to get their stick on the ball is just fantastic – like bees to a honey pot!

Our B-grade team, MBA Black, are surprising everyone with their gutsy performances to date. This team comprises boys and girls ranging from years 5 to 8, and some of them have never played hockey before let alone on a full-size turf. They are currently placed third out of the nine teams in their grade having lost only two out of eight games played this season, a fantastic effort given that they are facing teams in the grade who are mainly year 7&8s.

Well done to the following players who trialled and were successful in making the Wairarapa U13 representative teams this year: Patrick Nicholson (Hatch), Toby Nelson (Curtis), Charlotte Jephson (Collier), Abby Green (Rawleigh) and Leah Hume (Development). The rep tournaments are held throughout New Zealand in the second week of the October school holidays. Lydia Mason and Toby Nelson took part in the U11 development programme last term. This is an 8-week programme focusing on technical skills with an opportunity to participate in a regional tournament at the end of the programme.

New to the game of hockey, but relishing the challenge of the sport, is goalie for our A-grade 1st XI team, Alex Mason. Alex attended a goalie clinic run by Hockey Wairarapa in the recent school holidays and he is looking forward to putting his new-found skills into practice in the second half of the season, especially slides and smothers!

We recently received funding of $700 from the Martinborough Community Board towards our practice turf fees at the Martinborough Tennis Club and Kuranui College for the season and we thank the Community Board for their support.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge all our coaches and managers who dedicate many hours of their time to their teams at practices and games and we want to thank them all for the fantastic job they do: Kiely Marshall, Elly Otty, Liz Larkin, Ange Sweeney, Marco de Groot, Kerry Campbell, Sonya Hume, Clare Miller, Pip Goodwin, Neens Bruce, Therese McGillicuddy, Amanda Draper and Carolyn Jephson.

If you have any queries about junior hockey, please contact Pippa Broom (Co-ordinator for Martinborough Hockey) on 0274 169 102. Our vision is to support and encourage as many children as possible to play and enjoy the game of hockey.