The 2023 season was a remarkable journey for the ABC P2 Women's Hockey Team, marked by success and resilience. With the introduction of ten new players, our young and promising squad embarked on a thrilling season.

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We kicked off with an impressive ten-game unbeaten streak (five draws included 😊), showcasing our strength as a cohesive team. However, we faced adversity in the middle of the season, enduring three consecutive losses for our final competition game, the early finals game and then our first before Intercity game. Despite this setback, our team never wavered in spirit, and got up for the second half of the season.

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One of the season's highlights was our presence in the Inter City final, where we fought valiantly but narrowly missed victory. We then went on to the Plate final. With just 11 P2 players and three D1 fill-ins, we triumphed in a thrilling shootout.

We owe our success to the dedication of our players, unwavering support from our supporters, and a massive thanks to the coaching and management team.

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As we look forward to 2024, we are excited about the potential within our team and the lessons learned from this season. With renewed determination, we aim to achieve even greater success in the upcoming year. Together, we are ready to face the challenges ahead, united by our passion for the game and a shared vision of victory.

Riki

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2022 Season Round Up 

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Wow, what a season!!!

 

With all the planning and the selection of a well-balanced and completive team full of young and seasoned players who had the skill set to play a fast competitive style of hockey, it all went out the window with injuries, COVID stand-downs and isolation and the U18 Representative campaign taking priority in its usual timeframe (not a complaint just a reality 😊).

 

The upside was we had an awesome group of players that showed up for practice and games with a positive attitude and who continually wanted to learn and improve.

 

Our season was full of trial and era as the team developed together but also learnt how to play an expansive brand of hockey with multiple structures keeping the opposition on their toes.

 

With a number of our seasoned players being out for long periods of time our younger players had to carry a load that was never anticipated at the time of selection. This is always challenging however the team that played the final game had no comparison to the team in the opening rounds. We had learnt to trust the processes, move the ball at pace through the field and even score a few great goals in the process.

 

A special shoutout must go to our awesome P3 team for all the players who put their hands up to help over the season. Without your support, we would not have been able to field a team on more than one occasion. It is a real testament to our supportive ABC Club culture!!

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A massive thanks to all our players, Brad O’Callaghan for taking on the assistant coach role, Madi Wright and Angela O’Callaghan for sharing the role of Manager and Angela for leading the team around the field. 

Looking forward to 2023.

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2021 Season Round Up 

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With the COVID-19 interrupted 2020 season, the ABC P2 Women were amped for 2021.

 

After a competitive trials process, hard trainings and several pre-season games and team bonding we were all ready to go!!

 

With a wide range of ages, experience, skillsets and a whole heap of enthusiasm we charged into the season with confidence and had a solid start with a draw and two wins in the first four games.

 

Unfortunately, from there it became clear it was going to be one of “those” seasons where things just don’t seem to go your way with injuries, Under 18 Representative duties and dispensations impacting on our ability to field our full team and as a result we stuttered through the season just making the top four by a single goal. A massive shoutout to all the P3 ladies who filled in over this time.

 

This was not a reflection of the effort put in by the players, as the team worked hard, implemented our game plans, but more importantly enjoyed playing together. We were competitive in every game either winning or losing by small margins with six wins, three draws and seven losses across the season.

 

If we based our season only on results it would not have been great. Luckily that’s not our only measure, and there is always next year. All individuals and the team improved throughout the season and enjoyed playing next to each other, resulting with us going into the final top four round with confidence and excited about having a crack at the big dogs. And then season was closed out due to COVID-19. Well that’s life 😊

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A massive thanks to all our players, Brad O’Callaghan for taking on the assistant coach role, Madi Wright for being an awesome Manager and Angela Tyrell (and then O’Callaghan) for leading the team around the field.  

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2020 Season Round Up 

 

All I can you say about 2020 is I hope we don’t have another like it in respect to the disruption to the season.

 

The positive to the season was that we had a team full to the brim of talented, positive, resilient and flexible players, coaches and managers who, when able, trained hard and played harder throughout the season.

 

We kicked off on a high winning the opening day competition and which was an indicator as to the potential of the team as we moved into the first part of the elongated season.

 

It was evident from the first couple of rounds that the P2 grade was going to be a very competitive competition and that bonus points might be the difference which played out as there was only two points separating 1st and 2nd after round one which ended up being what decided the NHHA Championship for 2020. Unfortunately, it was a repeat result of 2019 with ABC P2 women finishing the season in second place. A credible result but as a team we were targeting 1st place, so we were disappointed.

 

The placing did set us up going into the finals format and the girls can be very proud of their efforts. 

 

While going down in the semi-final to NSU, a team packed full of ex-international and premier players, our girls battled hard only going down by one goal at the final whistle after we tried every trick in the books to get the win including playing the last 12 minutes without a goalie.

 

On reflection it was a season we can be proud of beating the competition champions, only dropping one game in the first round and then losing a very tight semi-final by a single goal. We scored 11 goals while only let through four over the full season.

 

A special thanks to Angela Tyrrell, 2020 captain, Hannah Patterson, our awesome manager and Brad O’Callaghan our super Assistant Coach.

 

Bring on 2021.

 

Cheers

Riki Burgess - Coach

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2019 Season Round Up

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With such an awesome group of players, 2019 was always going to be a good one both on and off the turf and it did not disappoint.

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With a wide range of ages, experience, skill sets and a whole heap of enthusiasm we charged into the season challenging the old foes of HDF and Takapuna, pushing for a top of that table position going into round two with 4 wins, 2 draws and a loss and then we hit the mid-season blues which just so happened to coincide with, injuries, players taking holidays (who does that J) and a few away on Masters duty. 

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There is nothing like hard work to turn things around and the back end of our season was a real testament to this as we had good numbers at trainings throughout the season. Carrying a bigger squad and having some great help from our P3 team stepping up meant that we were not short of numbers on the team card allowing us to play some quality, up-tempo hockey that was very enjoyable to watch.

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From a result’s standpoint, the team finished second and if we had turned two of the draws into wins, we would have won the grade. As they say “Close but no cigars”. This, however, put us in a great position for a run at the finals with a convincing quarter-final win ensuring we went into the semi-final full of confidence. 

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And then it started to rain and I wished we had not cancelled those couple of wet training nights for the comfort of a warm fire and early night as we did not do so well on a wet track going down 2/1 to HDF which was really disappointing for all.

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A massive thanks to Brad O’Callaghan for taking on the assistant coach role, Hannah Patterson for being an awesome manager and Erin Webber for leading the team around the field. 

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Bring on 2020!