Hawke’s Bay sporting talent on show for international tournaments

The New Zealand women's Black Sticks, with four Hawke's Bay players, winners of the Nations Cup in March and now off for five matches in the US. Photo / Hockey NZ

Four players who have played hockey for Hawke’s Bay have retained their places in the New Zealand women’s Black Sticks squad for a five-match series in the US next month.

They include captain and Manawatu-raised Olivia Shannon, who was a student at Iona College, Havelock North, from 2013 to 2018, and who has played 88 games for the national side.

Her games include the Tokyo Olympic Games and, after missing qualifying for the Olympics in Paris, the bounce-back performance in winning the women’s Nations Cup tournament in Chile in March.

Also retained from that squad for the July 3-11 tour are Emma Findlay (15 matches) and the Cotter sisters Hannah (20 matches) and Kaitlin (37 matches), all from Hawke’s Bay.

The quartet now form a backbone of the 20-player squad as they prepare for the Oceania Cup in Darwin in September, including a clash with Australia that will decide direct qualification for the 2026 World Cup tournament.

Shannon first captained the Black Sticks in two 2-1 losses to Australia in April 2023, the closest New Zealand has come to beating Australia in women’s hockey in the last decade.

The selections are the latest in the naming of Hawke’s Bay sports talent in national sides for tournaments and events overseas, including four in the Black Sticks men’s squad to defend the men’s Nations Cup in Kuala Lumpur starting on June 15.

They are Olympic Games representatives Dom Dixon and Sean Findlay, and previously also acclaimed national representatives Dylan Thomas, Sam Hiha and Jonty Elmes, whose promise at the upper levels was showcased when New Zealand won the cup in Poland last year.

The Nations Cup tournaments are for teams ranked 9-16 in the world.

Elmes’ brother, Luke, and Oscar Nation are in a men’s A squad for the July 24-August 1 Hulunbuir (Moqi) International Field Hockey Invitational Trophy in China.

At least three other players are off to world championships, including teenage basketballers Jackson Ball and Kahu Treacher, in the Junior Tall Blacks squad for the Fiba Junior World Cup in Switzerland from June 28 to July 6.

Will Cole, from Wairarapa but having joined the Havelock North club last year, is in the New Zealand side for the 12-team Under 20 Rugby World Cup in Italy on June 29-July 19, having helped the side to win the four-nations Rugby Championship Under 20 title in South Africa last month.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.