HOCKEY - Animosity misguided, says Norton

Simon Norton, the director of hockey for St Cuthberts - one of Auckland's leading hockey-playing schools - believes the arrival of some of Northland's top junior players in Auckland will help both areas.
Norton said that there seemed to be some resentment about young Northland players heading south, but it was a two-way street.
Northland players get an education that they can't get in their home region and that they often return to play hockey in the north when their education is completed.
"Rather than there be animosity between Auckland and Northland we'd like the message to be heard that we're grateful for the work Northland does with its hockey talent," Norton said
"What the people from Northland don't see is that it creates a real issue for Auckland representative teams. There's quite a groundswell of opinion against the Northland kids coming down and taking places in the Auckland teams because of its detriment to the Auckland youth," he said.
Simpson has coached plenty of Northlanders in Auckland representative sides, from Toni Mason through to the new crop of Northland players at St Cuthberts, Stacey Michelsen, Holly Smith, Kaitlyn Gravatt, Phoebe Bint and Grace Seeley.
St Cuthberts' first XI hockey team is the top-ranked school side in the district (its second XI is third) and currently has more than 20 teams playing every weekend.
Norton's comments follow criticism expressed after former Black Sticks player Jan Rowsell turned her back on the North Harbour association last week, to once again play hockey for Northland.
Rowsell thought she had been released by North Harbour but that wasn't the case and Rowsell almost missed out on the opportunity to play for Northland in this season's NHL competition.
North Harbour Chief Executive Darryl Simpson said that rather than being difficult, the association had simply followed the NHL rules by not releasing Rowsell to play for Northland.
"Rowsell trialled and was chosen for the North Harbour squad before deciding to play for Northland, and by trialling she made herself available and by withdrawing, she made herself unavailable and therefore could not be a guest player - she had to transfer to Northland officially," Simpson said.
Rowsell had to scramble to transfer to Northland club side Maungakaramea last Friday, in a move prompted by North Harbour.
Simpson said there had been a genuine misunderstanding by Rowsell about why North Harbour Hockey had acted in the way it had.
"When the (North Harbour) coach said if you don't want to play for Harbour, then you're probably better to play for Northland, it wasn't an official release of Jan from here ... but I think that's where the misunderstanding occurred," Simpson said.
Simpson said the association was genuinely concerned that Rowsell might miss out on playing NHL for anybody.
Meanwhile Northland senior club competition games will be played on Sunday to make way for the final day of the under-18 national tournament tomorrow.
Rowsell's Maungakaramea play old foes Hikurangi, with Old Girls playing United Kawakawa in the second premier women's match. The all-collegiate clash between Kamo High School and Whangarei Girls' High School has been deferred to another date.
Another important clash between Maungakaramea and Mangapai in the men's premier league will be played tonight, while Bream Bay United play Springfield on Sunday at 3pm.