There was no joy for Southern hockey teams at the national championships over the weekend but at least one is starting to look competitive.
The Southern Men showed plenty of grit in their losses to Midlands (2-1) and North Harbour (3-1), but the Southern Storm women's side was soundly thrashed by both North Harbour (5-1) and Midlands (5-0).
Both sides have lost their opening three games. There is a rest day today, with the men to play Northland tomorrow and the women to play Wellington.
Southern actually led powerful North Harbour 1-0 in yesterday's men's game, with rising star Hugo Inglis giving his side the lead.
But Harbour struck back, dominating the second half with goals to Shaun Barnett, Bryce Collins and David Green to rise to second in the men's standings.
On Saturday, the Southern Men - no doubt still stinging after a shoddy 3-9 loss on the opening day - showed excellent commitment on defence against Midlands.
The game was scoreless after half an hour when David Guest struck twice in 5min to give Midlands a 2-0 lead.
Australian player Liam Brown converted a reverse field goal 10min into the second half for Southern, which poured forward in search of an equaliser but could not find it.
The Southern Storm was badly outgunned against Auckland yesterday, conceding two goals in the first half and three in the second.
Leading the way for Auckland was Honor Dillon, the partner of All Black first five-eighth Daniel Carter, who scored a hat trick. Her first two goals were from crisp strikes and her third from a reverse sweep from close range.
Southern trailed by two at half-time in Saturday's game against North Harbour and went 0-3 down through an own goal.
Monique Wilson pulled one back for the Storm but Harbour added two more field goals for the convincing win.
