Hollow victory as St Matthew's Collegiate miss trophies

St Matthew's Collegiate have ''won'' the round robin series of the Wellington secondary schoolgirls premier one hockey competition with an unbeaten record but they don't have anything to show for their efforts and it hasn't helped their title aspirations one iota.
Under the current competition format, only teams from the Wellington region are eligible for any trophies in round-robin play and all points gained there are wiped for the main championship round.
As it happens, the two Wairarapa-based teams contesting the premier one series, St Matthew's and Wairarapa College, have been the dominant teams, a typical scenario in recent years. In 2009, for instance, they played off in the grand final and, of their current opposition, only Samuel Marsden College seems capable of stopping them from repeating that feat this season.
It was Samuel Marsden, in fact, who met St Matthew's in the last of their round robin games and, while coach Abby Hill was not over-enthused with the quality of the St Matthew's play they still ran out 4-2 winners .
''We were pretty average, we never really got out of second gear,'' was Hill's frank appraisal of her team's performance. ''I don't think they (Samuel Marsden) would have been happy with their game either, it was ordinary stuff.''
With seven wins from seven matches and having scored 35 goals while conceding only three, St Matthew's compiled a hugely impressive record in their round-robin programme but Hill isn't getting carried away with those statistics because of the huge gulf in standard between the top three sides and those below them.
''Obviously, it's nice to be winning but, quite honestly, you couldn't get too excited about the level of competition, overall it's quite weak,''she said.
So poor is the standard that Hill is worried it could have an adverse impact on St Matthew's _ and Wairarapa College for that matter _ when they contest the Federation Cup national secondary schoolgirls tournament in Christchurch in late August. Ambitions there are to make the quarter-finals but Hill's concern is that a lack of regular match play of a high standard will put them behind the eight ball to some degree.
Competition points in the round-robin series were: St Matthew's Collegiate 21, Wairarapa College 18, Samuel Marsden College 15, Sacred Heart 10, Wellington East 7, Chilton St James 6, Naenae 4, Paraparaumu 1.
Meantime Wairarapa College and Rathkeale College have completed their round-robin commitments in the Wellington secondary schoolboys premier one competition with Wairarapa College in second place with 15 points, four behind leaders Wellington College, and Rathkeale College sixth equal with seven points.