Sports talk: Local hockey players make rep side

NATIONALS: Connor Herewini (right) is one of the Rotorua players representing Midlands at the New Zealand Hockey Championships. PHOTO/FILE

A number of Bay of Plenty hockey players will be representing Midlands at the upcoming national tournament.

Amy Robinson and Frances Davies (Tauranga) and Oriwa Hepi (Rotorua) are representing the Bayleys Midlands women's team while Hugh Gilmore, Joseph Lyons (Tauranga), Connor Herewini and Leo Mitai-Wells (Rotorua) will be representing the men's team.

Donna Keaney (Rotorua) will be the assistant coach for the women's team and Lincoln Churchill will be the men's team assistant coach.

The teams were in action last weekend with the women getting off to a flying start on Saturday, beating Central 5-1 in Napier. They followed up this win with another, a 3-1 penalty shoot-out win, over Auckland after drawing 1-1 in normal time.

Robinson and Davies were also part of the Midlands U21 team that won gold at national tournament in May.

The men had a testing start to their opening after going down 4-1 against Central, however they showed great bounce-back-ability on Sunday beating local rivals Auckland 3-2 leaving them in a good position to push on at next week's tournament.

Both teams head to Whangarei for the national league tournament from September 10-17. They will be looking to be in the final on September 17 live on Sky Sports.