Hockey: Rain makes life tough for committed players

Rain affected a lot of play in the reserve grade hockey competitions. Photo/Getty Images

The rain put a dampener on reserve A women's hockey matches on Friday night with two of the four matches being called off early due to dangerous conditions.

The earlier starting matches copped the heaviest downpours which caused surface flooding on the turfs and forced the teams to abandon the games when the play got dangerous.

However since both were called off after 50 minutes of play, the results will stand according to Hockey Northland's club council policy rules.

Whangarei Girls' High School were up 9-0 over Mangapai when the game was stopped with 15 minutes to go and their coach Alan Moscrip admitted he was amazed at his team's ability to play decent hockey on such a wet surface.

"Sometimes the weather can be a bit of a leveller but they adapted to the conditions really well," Moscrip said.

On the neighbouring turf, Maungakaramea were beating Springfield 3-0 when the game was stopped 55 minutes in.

Hikurangi managed to play the full 70 minutes against Parihaka to claim a 4-1 win while in the later match Old Girls beat Kamo High School 2-0.

In the reserve men's grade played on Thursday there were no such issues with the rain and all matches ran smoothly.

Maungakaramea beat Whangarei Boys' High School 4-0 while Springfield beat Bream Bay 2-0.

In the closest match of the round Hora Hora beat Mangapai 4-3 to leapfrog over their rivals into second on the table.