North Harbour thrashed defending champions Wellington for the second time in three days to convincingly book a spot in today's National Hockey League men's finals, at Albany.
Harbour downed Wellington 6-2 in the final round of pool play on Wednesday night, leaving some to wonder if Wellington hadtaken the foot of the pedal to conserve for yesterday's semifinal.
Harbour were, however, equally dominant, winning 4-1. The home side scored first in the 26th minute. A goal was controversially disallowed. Seconds later they were awarded a penalty corner. Wellington infringed and Blair Hopping duly converted the subsequently awarded stroke.
Two minutes later Harbour struck again with a well rehearsed set piece penalty corner, injector Hopping diving to deflect home a David Green low drag flick from the top of the circle.
Possession in the second half was even, but Harbour looked more dangerous up front, and went 3-0 up midway through when Sam Bartholomew made a nice run up the right flank to set up Bryce Collins to score.
Hopping scored his hat-trick from another penalty corner deflection in the 57th minute, taking the lead to 4-0.
Brent Livermore scored a consolation goal for Wellington with 10 minutes to play.
Harbour's opponent today in the final is Canterbury who beat Midlands, in yesterday's other semifinal.
Canterbury prevailed in extra-time after being tied 2-2 at fulltime. The winner came five minutes in when Hayden Shaw finally beat gutsy Australian import keeper Ben Creese firing into the bottom left corner.
Midlands levelled against the run of play four minutes before halftime through their first corner. Canterbury went into halftime 2-1. Midlands equalised with seven minutes to play.
The final will be played at 2.05pm at Crown Relocations Stadium, Albany. The first women's semifinal between Wellington and Midlands is at 8am. Second semifinal between Northland and North Harbour at 10am.
