Hat-tricks from Amber Hearn and Sarah Gregorious steered New Zealand to a crushing 10-0 win over the Cook Islands and into the semifinals of the Oceania Nations Cup at North Harbour Stadium yesterday.
Hearn, who scored five in the first-day win over Vanuatu, needed just nine minutes to add to
her haul yesterday.
Gregorious, who had failed to score in previous outings for the Football Ferns, was on the board with her breakthrough goal seven minutes later. Katie Hoyle quickly matched Gregorious in scoring her first international goal at senior level for 3-0 after 21 minutes.
Second goals for Gregorious and Hearn - who fired home a cracker - and another right on halftime for Ria Percival, who watched in delight as a supposed cross sneaked under the crossbar and had the hosts 6-0 at the break.
Nine minutes into the second half Gregorious completed her hat-trick.
A minute later Abby Erceg stretched the lead to 8-0 before Hearn grabbed her third, and eighth goal of the tournament, in the 65th minute.
The scoring was completed 10 minutes from time when veteran substitute Maia Jackman headed home an Anna Green corner.
"In patches we had a better performance than on Wednesday. We had identified some things we wanted to do better in this game and in some areas we did that," said New Zealand captain Hayley Moorwood. "In others we've still got some tidying up to do.
"When we play the Island teams it is always going to be compact so we wanted to play out wide and get the combinations going with our wide players, and I think we did that at times but still need to do it more."
The Ferns welcomed Kirsty Yallop back into their starting line-up after the midfielder arrived from Sweden on Thursday, but Ali Riley and Rebecca Smith sat out the match with injury niggles.
In yesterday's early game, Tahiti beat Vanuatu 5-1 with Heimiri Alvarez leading the charge in netting the first hat-trick of the day.
She gave her team a flying start, scoring after just 13 minutes. Stephanie Tougen equalised five minutes later for Vanuatu - their first goal of the tournament - but that joy was short-lived as Alvarez put the Tahitians back in front within two minutes.
For the next hour there was no further scoring, but three goals in as many minutes suddenly had Tahiti 5-1 ahead with Alvarez completing her hat-trick with the last goal of the game after Tiare White and Tihani Tokoragi had opened their accounts.
Sarah Gregorious. Photo / Getty Images
Hat-tricks from Amber Hearn and Sarah Gregorious steered New Zealand to a crushing 10-0 win over the Cook Islands and into the semifinals of the Oceania Nations Cup at North Harbour Stadium yesterday.
Hearn, who scored five in the first-day win over Vanuatu, needed just nine minutes to add to
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