A disastrous eight-minute spell dealt a mortal blow to the Southern Men and its hopes of finishing with a flourish in the NHL in Wellington over the weekend.
The men went down 4-1 to North Harbour, a team it had beaten on Thursday, on Saturday and wrecked its hopes of battling for fifth or sixth place. It managed to bounce back to defeat Canterbury 2-1 yesterday to finish seventh.
The women's side lost narrowly 2-1 to Canterbury on Saturday, conceding the winner in golden-goal time, and then failed to wake up early enough yesterday, going down 5-1 to Capital, to finish eighth.
The men had their best tournament at the NHL, winning three games, drawing one and losing three games by just one goal, so the side was disappointed to finish seventh.
It could have been better if it had beaten North Harbour on Saturday.
The southern team went ahead early through Hugo Inglis and then defended well as North Harbour went looking for an equaliser.
With under 10 minutes to go, the southern side was still ahead but North Harbour managed to find an equaliser.
That was quickly followed by another and the southern team's defence switched right off and conceded goals seemingly at will as North Harbour ran out a comfortable winner.
The Southern Men side though did not throw in the towel yesterday and came out firing against Canterbury.
The southern side had plenty of chances before Inglis put the side on the scoreboard.
The game was tied up with about 15 minutes to go before Kane Russell converted a penalty corner into the top righthand corner of the goal to lead 2-1.
The defence held tight to seal the win, with goalkeeper Hamish McGregor impressing while veteran defender James Nation also impressed.
The Southern Storm was very competitive against Canterbury on Saturday, and scored a nice field goal through Samara Dalziel as the sides could not be separated at the end of regulation time.
The match went into golden-goal time and, under the rules, two players are dropped off every six minutes.
The sides got down to seven players each and Canterbury managed to nab a field goal to claim the win.
It was tough on the Storm and it then had to get up yesterday morning and face Capital in the playoff for seventh and eighth.
Anita Chandler scored the opening goal for the Southern Storm but then it trailed off.
Impressive for the Storm yesterday and throughout the whole tournament was rock-solid defender Vicky Clarke-Joyce while Philippa Symes was lively up front.
Auckland won the women's final 5-2 over Central while the men's final between Auckland and Central was canned because of the poor weather.
Both Southern teams were stuck in Wellington last night because of the poor weather.
