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Hawke's Bay Hockey Division 1

As with other Schoolboys Divisions in Hawke's Bay Hockey leagues the first part of the season is a grading competition.  With such a young team, with an average age of just 15, we were always going to find the first part of the season an experimental and development part of the year.  We had some excellent wins over teams such as Taikura and St Johns.  We had some poor performances an disapointing losses to some very unimpressive teams.

This erratic period saw us missing out on the top or Premiership part of this Division.  At first we thought this was going to be a huge issue.  It didn't help in terms of getting some hard games before Super 8 and National Tournament which is an issue we need to address next season.  It did allow us however to try out new tactics and give all of our 1st XI Hockey squad a run.  We added in some games against club teams which helped strenghten our team as well.

The Championship Boys Division 1 finals went in a similar fashion to the first part.  Against significantly weaker oppoonent we dominated most games playing below potention.  The one exception to this was agains St John's in the last round of the league.  St John's had a NZ Tiger turf and NHL player in their team who caused problems for us.  We won the game howver with their player scoring all of their goals but not being able to match our strong team performance.

We played St Johns in the final of this grade.  Unfortunately for them and us their Tiger Turf player was not available.  We played poorly but completely dominated the game running out worthy winners with a 5 - 1 scoreline. 

Interestingly next season many teams in this division such as St Johns and Taradale, as well as teams above us such as Napier Boys' 1st XI, lose their strongest players.  We are fortunate that we will lose no players next season and only 4 players over the next 3 seasons.